A Jump-Distance-Based Parameter Inference Scheme for Particulate Trajectories

Rebecca Menssen*, Madhav Mani

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study presents an improved quantitative tool for the analysis of particulate trajectories. Particulate trajectory data appears in several different biological contexts, from the trajectory of chemotaxing bacteria to the nuclear mobility inferred from the trajectory of MS2 spots. Presently, the majority of analyses performed on particulate trajectory data have been limited to mean-squared displacement (MSD) analysis. Although simple, MSD analysis has several pitfalls, including difficulty in selecting between competing methods of motion, handling systems with multiple distinct subpopulations, and parameter extraction from limited time-series data. Here, we provide an alternative to MSD analysis using the jump distance distribution (JDD), which addresses the aforementioned issues. In particular, the method outperforms MSD analysis in the data-poor limit, thereby giving access to a larger range of temporal dynamics. In this work, we construct and validate a derivation of the JDD for different transportation modes and dimensions and implement a parameter estimation and model selection scheme. This scheme is validated, and direct improvements over MSD analysis are shown. Through an analysis of bacterial chemotaxis data, we highlight the JDD's ability to extract parameters at a variety of timescales, as well as extract underlying biological features of interest.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)143-156
Number of pages14
JournalBiophysical Journal
Volume117
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 9 2019

Funding

The authors thank Seppe Kuehn and Harry Mickalide at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for providing the bacterial chemotaxis data for analysis. The authors thank Eric Johnson, Gregory Kimmel, and Michael Sumner for helpful discussions on the method and manuscript. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-1324585 (R.M.), and the Simons Foundation (597491, M.M.). M.M. is a Simons Foundation Investigator. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-1324585 (R.M.), and the Simons Foundation (597491, M.M.). M.M. is a Simons Foundation Investigator. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biophysics

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