FIGURE 2.

Principle of fluorescence loss in photobleaching (FLIP). (A) Fluorescent proteins of interest (turquoise) are repetitively photobleached in the soma, creating a sink that progressively depletes the cell fluorescence. (B) Fluorescence decay in the bleached zone is determined by local photobleaching and protein mobility. Fluorescence decay in the rest of the cell (here shown in 2 regions of interest) is determined solely by molecule exchanges with the bleached zone, thus materializing constraints on protein dynamics throughout the cell.