Studying endocytosis in space and time by means of temporal Boolean models

Endocytosis is a process by which cells carry traffic from the extracellular space into various intracellular compartments. Visualization of fluorescently tagged clathrin proteins (mediators of endocytosis) allows us to image endocytosis in real time. When imaging the plasma membrane, areas of fluorescence generated by different endocytic processes overlap spatially and temporally, forming random clumps. Here, a sequence of segmented clathrin spots is considered a realization of a non-isotropic 3D Boolean model. Estimates of the intensity, the mean perimeter and the density function of the durations of endocytic events are obtained.