Table 1.

Fundamental differences in analytical approaches employed by Lillemeier et al. and Sherman et al. to analyze SMLM data.

Parameters	Lillemeier et al.	Sherman et al.	Implication
Statistical method for cluster analysis	Ripley's K-function analysis	Pair correlation function (PCF)	Smaller clusters are under-reported in Ripley's functions, which should be used mainly to report separation distances rather than cluster size. PCF shows results uniformly across all length scales and is more appropriate for detecting small-scale clusters.
Poisson model	Standard Poisson null model	Heterogeneous Poisson model	Effects of plasma membrane heterogeneity are considered in the heterogeneous Poisson process, while the standard Poisson model can report membrane ruffles as clusters.
Intensity-based thresholding	Yes	No	Many molecules are gated as background and small clusters may be removed from analysis.