A Digital Image Processing Technique for the Analysis of Particle Movements: Its Application to Organelle Movements during Mitosis in Adiantum Protonemata

A digital image processing technique was developed for the simultaneousdetection of changes in organelle movements in different regionsof a cell from the protonemata of the fern, Adiantum. The speedof particle movements at a chosen position in a series of dynamicimages that had been recorded by a time-lapse video system wasdetermined in terms of standard error of brightness changeswith a gray scale level. Using this new method and microscopy we could distinguish 3different regions during mitosis in terms of organelle movementpatterns. Organelles located outside of the nucleus were inmovement until the nucleolus disappeared at prophase, whereasorganelles in the boundary region between the nucleus and cytoplasmbecame active after prophase. The organelles located outsidethe nucleus again began to move rapidly after chromosome separation.The nuclear pole region showed movement throughout mitosis. ³ Present address: Tbaraki Satellite Communication Center, KokusaiDenshin Denwa Co. Ltd., Takahagi, Ibaraki 318, Japan. ⁴ Present address: Biology Department, Faculty of Science, TokyoMetropolitan University, Fukazawa, Tokyo 158, Japan. (Received September 3, 1982; Accepted December 23, 1982)