Local statistics allow quantification of cell-to-cell variability from high-throughput microscope images

Quantifying variability in protein expression is a major goal of systems biology and cell-to-cell variability in subcellular localization pattern has not been systematically quantified. We define a local measure to quantify cell-to-cell variability in high-throughput microscope images and show that it allows comparable measures of variability for proteins with diverse subcellular localizations. We systematically estimate cell-to-cell variability in the yeast GFP collection and identify examples of proteins that show cell-to-cell variability in their subcellular localization. Automated image analysis methods can be used to quantify cell-to-cell variability in microscope images.