A critique of methods for temperature imaging in single cells

Guillaume Baffou (1) , Herve Rigneault (1) , Didier Marguet (2, 3) , Ludovic Jullien (4)

1 MOSAIC - MOSAIC
2 CIML - Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille - Luminy
3 Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
4 Département de Chimie - ENS Paris

We argue that standard thermodynamic considerations and scaling laws show that a single cell cannot substantially raise its temperature by endogenous thermogenesis. This statement seriously questions the interpretations of recent work reporting temperature heterogeneities measured in single living cells.

Domaines: Optique / photonique

Guillaume Baffou, Herve Rigneault, Didier Marguet, Ludovic Jullien. A critique of methods for temperature imaging in single cells. Nature Methods, 2014, 1, pp.899-901. ⟨10.1038/nmeth.3073⟩. ⟨hal-01059425⟩