To measure the fluorescence intensity of the transfected HeLa cells in ImageJ software, click file and select open. In the dialogue box, select the imaging files for the experiment and click okay. Once the bio-formats import options window appears, select split channels and click okay.
In tetramethylrhodamine, ethyl ester, perchlorate, or TMRE experiments, YFP is the first channel, MitoTracker is the second channel and TMRE is the third channel. Adjust the brightness by selecting image, then adjust and then the brightness. Next, load the saved region of interest or ROI by clicking analyze, then tools, then ROI manager.
In the ROI manager, click more, then open from the list and select the saved ROI. Then measure the fluorescent intensity of five random regions in a single cell by selecting the saved ROI from the ROI manager and moving the ROI to a random location within a cell. To measure the fluorescence intensity, press M on the keyboard and repeat this with four additional non-overlapping regions.
When a dialogue box with the area and mean gray values appears, copy and paste the values into a spreadsheet for analysis. The results for the TMRE and MitoSOX fluorescence intensities showed that their treatment with the known uncoupling agent CCCP decreased the TMRE fluorescence intensity compared to the control conditions. In addition, 20 micromolar CCCP treatment induced superoxide production and increased the MitoSOX fluorescence intensity.
In mild or five micromolar CCCP stress conditions, the expression of Parkin wild-type and Parkin T240R resulted in higher TMRE intensity compared to the empty YFP control vector. The MitoSOX intensity was lower in cells expressing Parkin wild-type and Parkin T240R compared to cells expressing the YFP control vector suggesting that Parking expression helps maintain the mitochondrial network health by preserving higher mitochondrial membrane potentials and low superoxide levels.
