High-throughput quantitative analysis of mitotic defects in fission
yeast using Imaging Flow Cytometry
Abstract
In this study, we introduce a novel approach for the high-throughput
quantitative analysis of mitotic defects in the fission yeast
Schizosaccharomyces pombe using Imaging Flow Cytometry (IFC).
Fission yeast is a valuable model organism for cell cycle research, and
the ‘cut’ phenotype, indicative of mitotic catastrophe, has been
instrumental in discovering cell cycle regulators. Traditional
fluorescence microscopy methods for quantifying ‘cut’ events suffer from
subjectivity and limited throughput. Our IFC pipeline overcomes these
limitations by automating the detection of ‘cut’ cells based on the
unique characteristic of daughter cell nuclei becoming trapped in the
cell wall during aberrant mitosis. We demonstrate the pipeline’s
effectiveness using wild-type and mutant strains, with results validated
against manual scoring. Our study establishes IFC as a powerful tool for
investigating mitotic fidelity in fission yeast, with implications for
advancing cell biology research.