Simultaneous multicolor imaging and multiscale analysis of receptor organization and actin cortex dynamics

Cell surface receptor organization is influenced by many components that crowd the plasma membrane, one of which is the actin cortex (AC). While the AC is a dynamic structure, most studies to date investigating how the AC influences cell surface receptor organization have not been able to access cortical actin dynamics. The reasons are that many studies perturb the actin cytoskeleton to infer its role on receptor organization, which precludes any quantification of actin dynamics in the absence of perturbation (in addition to cytotoxicity concerns), and that the AC is too dense to resolve with conventional light microscopy.