A stereological unfolding method for the study of the mitochondrial network

Abstract

When the mitochondrial network within the cell is in a fragmented state, it resembles a spatial distribution of prolate spheroids of various shapes, sizes and orientations. This paper presents a maximum-likelihood scheme for inferring the distribution of spheroidal shapes, sizes and orientations from the observed distribution of elliptical sections. We also present a parametric bootstrap suitable for inferring confidence intervals for the parameters describing the shape and size distribution of the spheroids.