ZEISS Spectral RICS​

Raster Imaging Correlation Spectroscopy (RICS) is an advanced technique used in biological imaging to study the dynamics of molecules and particles at the cellular level. It involves analyzing the movement of fluorescently labeled particles across a raster-scanned image of a sample. By correlating the intensity fluctuations between different pixels in the image, RICS can provide information about the diffusion rates, concentration, and interactions of these particles.

RICS can be used to measure changes in diffusion resulting from protein interaction. With standard auto-correlation RICS analysis, we can see that the diffusion coefficient drops in correspondence with the size of SUMO chain. This type of studies can also measure the changes in diffusion of tagged proteins of interest in the presence of drug treatments, mutations, or other influences.

Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) is expressed on the membrane of cells and is one of the entry receptors for reoviruses. The reoviral landing and docking sites are visualized in magenta. RICS analysis depicted as a grid-based heatmap reveals that the diffusion of EGFR is faster adjacent to the viral docking sites, compared to other membrane locations.