Label-free multiscale transport imaging of the living cell

The living cell is characterized by a myriad of parallel intracellular transport processes. Simultaneously capturing their global features across multiple temporal and spatial scales is a nearly unsurmountable task. Here we present a method that enables the microscopic imaging of the entire spectrum of intracellular transport on a broad time scale without the need for prior labeling. We show that from the time-dependent fluctuation of pixel intensity, in either bright-field or phase-contrast microscopic images, a scaling factor can be derived that reflects the local Hurst coefficient (H), the value of which reveals the microscopic mechanisms of intracellular motion.

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