Definition and research guide
This page combines a MeSH definition, publication statistics and selected research abstracts. It is a starting point for reading the literature, not a medical textbook or a systematic evidence review.
Content available: 4 complete abstracts (665 words), 10 references. Full article text is not stored or reproduced here; follow the PMID, DOI or PMC links to read the original sources and their access terms.
Definition
Recording serial images of a process at regular intervals spaced out over a longer period of time than the time in which the recordings will be played back.
Definition: NLM Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) scope note (Public domain (U.S. National Library of Medicine); attribution requested). View the MeSH record.
Also known as: Imaging, Time-Lapse; Time Lapse Imaging; Time-Lapsed Imaging; Imaging, Time-Lapsed; Time Lapsed Imaging.
Where it fits in the MeSH classification
- Broader topics
- Photography; Video Recording
Research landscape
PubMed indexes 3,888 records tagged with the MeSH heading “Time-Lapse Imaging” (counts retrieved 2026-11-04). 948 of them (24.4%) were published from 2020 onward, and the busiest period so far is 2010-2019 with 2,947 records.
Reviews account for 141 records (3.6%) and meta-analyses for 8. Randomized controlled trials number 22 (0.6%) as a share of all records on the topic. Randomized trials make up only a small share of this literature, so much of what is known comes from laboratory, observational or descriptive work.
Show the data
| Period | Records |
|---|---|
| through 1999 | 0 |
| 2000-2009 | 4 |
| 2010-2019 | 2,947 |
| 2020 onward | 948 |
Publication-type chart data
| Type | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 141 | 3.6% |
| Meta-analyses | 8 | 0.2% |
| Randomized controlled trials | 22 | 0.6% |
Method: PubMed query "Time-Lapse Imaging"[MeSH Terms] with publication-type and date filters, retrieved 2026-11-04.
Reading the evidence in diagnostics and medical technology
A test or device is judged by how well it detects a condition, how often it gives false alarms or misses cases, and whether using it improves outcomes for people. Accuracy depends on who is tested and how common the condition is, so a test that performs well in a specialist hospital can perform differently in the community. Check the reference standard, the population studied, the sensitivity and specificity and whether results were confirmed in a separate group.
Evidence from open-access studies
These open-access studies come from PubMed’s best-match results for this heading (papers whose main topic it is), ranked here by citation count, with one recent addition. Each abstract is reproduced in full under its recorded open licence so that you can read the authors’ own words. They illustrate the literature; they are not a systematic summary of it. Citation counts measure attention, not reliability or clinical benefit.
| Study / authors | Year | Source label / design | Europe PMC citations | Licence / source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A single-cell time-lapse of mouse prenatal development from gastrula to birth | 2024 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 202 | cc by PMID 38355799 · DOI · PMC10901739 |
| SRRF: Universal live-cell super-resolution microscopy | 2018 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 143 | cc by PMID 29852248 · DOI · PMC6025290 |
| Structure of silent transcription intervals and noise characteristics of mammalian genes | 2015 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 122 | cc by PMID 26215071 · DOI · PMC4547851 |
| A palette of bright and photostable monomeric fluorescent proteins for bacterial time-lapse imaging | 2025 | Research article Design not recorded in structured metadata | 21 | cc by PMID 40238862 · DOI · PMC12002091 |
A single-cell time-lapse of mouse prenatal development from gastrula to birth [1]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- The house mouse (Mus musculus) is an exceptional model system, combining genetic tractability with close evolutionary affinity to humans1,2.
- Closing excerpt
- Remarkably, the most marked temporal shifts in cell states are observed within one hour of birth and presumably underlie the massive physiological adaptations that must accompany the successful transition of a mammalian fetus to life outside the womb.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (223 words)
The house mouse (Mus musculus) is an exceptional model system, combining genetic tractability with close evolutionary affinity to humans1,2. Mouse gestation lasts only 3 weeks, during which the genome orchestrates the astonishing transformation of a single-cell zygote into a free-living pup composed of more than 500 million cells. Here, to establish a global framework for exploring mammalian development, we applied optimized single-cell combinatorial indexing3 to profile the transcriptional states of 12.4 million nuclei from 83 embryos, precisely staged at 2- to 6-hour intervals spanning late gastrulation (embryonic day 8) to birth (postnatal day 0). From these data, we annotate hundreds of cell types and explore the ontogenesis of the posterior embryo during somitogenesis and of kidney, mesenchyme, retina and early neurons. We leverage the temporal resolution and sampling depth of these whole-embryo snapshots, together with published data4-8 from earlier timepoints, to construct a rooted tree of cell-type relationships that spans the entirety of prenatal development, from zygote to birth. Throughout this tree, we systematically nominate genes encoding transcription factors and other proteins as candidate drivers of the in vivo differentiation of hundreds of cell types. Remarkably, the most marked temporal shifts in cell states are observed within one hour of birth and presumably underlie the massive physiological adaptations that must accompany the successful transition of a mammalian fetus to life outside the womb.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 38355799 · DOI · PMC10901739
SRRF: Universal live-cell super-resolution microscopy [2]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Super-resolution microscopy techniques break the diffraction limit of conventional optical microscopy to achieve resolutions approaching tens of nanometres.
- Closing excerpt
- We show its applicability to live samples expressing GFP using commercial confocal as well as laser- and LED-based widefield microscopes, with the latter achieving long-term timelapse imaging with minimal photobleaching.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (137 words)
Super-resolution microscopy techniques break the diffraction limit of conventional optical microscopy to achieve resolutions approaching tens of nanometres. The major advantage of such techniques is that they provide resolutions close to those obtainable with electron microscopy while maintaining the benefits of light microscopy such as a wide palette of high specificity molecular labels, straightforward sample preparation and live-cell compatibility. Despite this, the application of super-resolution microscopy to dynamic, living samples has thus far been limited and often requires specialised, complex hardware. Here we demonstrate how a novel analytical approach, Super-Resolution Radial Fluctuations (SRRF), is able to make live-cell super-resolution microscopy accessible to a wider range of researchers. We show its applicability to live samples expressing GFP using commercial confocal as well as laser- and LED-based widefield microscopes, with the latter achieving long-term timelapse imaging with minimal photobleaching.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 29852248 · DOI · PMC6025290
Structure of silent transcription intervals and noise characteristics of mammalian genes [3]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Mammalian transcription occurs stochastically in short bursts interspersed by silent intervals showing a refractory period.
- Closing excerpt
- These findings have implications for basic transcription biology and shed light on interpreting single-cell RNA-counting experiments.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (151 words)
Mammalian transcription occurs stochastically in short bursts interspersed by silent intervals showing a refractory period. However, the underlying processes and consequences on fluctuations in gene products are poorly understood. Here, we use single allele time-lapse recordings in mouse cells to identify minimal models of promoter cycles, which inform on the number and durations of rate-limiting steps responsible for refractory periods. The structure of promoter cycles is gene specific and independent of genomic location. Typically, five rate-limiting steps underlie the silent periods of endogenous promoters, while minimal synthetic promoters exhibit only one. Strikingly, endogenous or synthetic promoters with TATA boxes show simplified two-state promoter cycles. Since transcriptional bursting constrains intrinsic noise depending on the number of promoter steps, this explains why TATA box genes display increased intrinsic noise genome-wide in mammals, as revealed by single-cell RNA-seq. These findings have implications for basic transcription biology and shed light on interpreting single-cell RNA-counting experiments.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 26215071 · DOI · PMC4547851
A palette of bright and photostable monomeric fluorescent proteins for bacterial time-lapse imaging [4]
Abstract reading summary — source excerpts
- Opening excerpt
- Fluorescent proteins (FPs) are pivotal for examining protein production, localization, and dynamics in live bacterial cells.
- Closing excerpt
- These novel FPs advance fluorescence time-lapse analysis in bacteria, and their spectral properties match current imaging standards, ensuring seamless integration into existing research workflows.
- Interpretation limits
- Verbatim excerpts from the authors’ abstract; the closing excerpt may describe a finding, limitation or recommendation. Design, population, effect size and uncertainty have not been independently extracted or appraised. Read the complete abstract and linked paper before interpreting the findings.
Read complete abstract (154 words)
Fluorescent proteins (FPs) are pivotal for examining protein production, localization, and dynamics in live bacterial cells. However, the use of FPs in time-lapse imaging is frequently constrained by issues such as oligomerization or limited photostability. Here, we report the engineering of novel cyan, green, yellow, and red FPs that exhibit improved photostability and aggregation properties while retaining high in vivo brightness. We first derived superfolder green fluorescent protein into mChartreuse, a brighter, more photostable, and monomeric fluorophore. mChartreuse was further derived into cyan and yellow variants with enhanced photostability and dispersibility. We also report a mutation that eliminates residual oligomerization in red FPs derived from Discosoma sp., such as mCherry or mApple. Incorporation of this mutation in mApple among other substitutions yielded mLychee, a bright and photostable monomeric red FP. These novel FPs advance fluorescence time-lapse analysis in bacteria, and their spectral properties match current imaging standards, ensuring seamless integration into existing research workflows.
Abstract reproduced from the open-access article under the recorded cc by licence; © the authors. PMID 40238862 · DOI · PMC12002091
Key reviews and meta-analyses
The most cited review-type papers among PubMed’s best-match results for this heading, listed with bibliographic details only. Follow the links for the full text and access terms.
- Research article Time-lapse monitoring as a tool for clinical embryo assessment [5]
- Research article Selection of high potential embryos using time-lapse imaging: the era of morphokinetics [6]
- Research article Live from under the lens: exploring microbial motility with dynamic imaging and microfluidics [7]
- Research article Choosing the best embryo by time lapse versus standard morphology [8]
- Research article Imaging cell biology in live animals: ready for prime time [9]
- Research article Biomarkers identified with time-lapse imaging: discovery, validation, and practical application [10]
References
- Qiu C, Martin BK, Welsh IC, Daza RM, Le TM, Huang X, et al.. A single-cell time-lapse of mouse prenatal development from gastrula to birth. . 2024. PMID 38355799 · DOI · PMC10901739
- Culley S, Tosheva KL, Matos Pereira P, Henriques R. SRRF: Universal live-cell super-resolution microscopy. . 2018. PMID 29852248 · DOI · PMC6025290
- Zoller B, Nicolas D, Molina N, Naef F. Structure of silent transcription intervals and noise characteristics of mammalian genes. . 2015. PMID 26215071 · DOI · PMC4547851
- Fraikin N, Couturier A, Mercier R, Lesterlin C. A palette of bright and photostable monomeric fluorescent proteins for bacterial time-lapse imaging. . 2025. PMID 40238862 · DOI · PMC12002091
- Kirkegaard K, Agerholm IE, Ingerslev HJ. Time-lapse monitoring as a tool for clinical embryo assessment. Hum Reprod. 2012. PMID 22419744 · DOI
- Herrero J, Meseguer M. Selection of high potential embryos using time-lapse imaging: the era of morphokinetics. Fertil Steril. 2013. PMID 23395415 · DOI
- Son K, Brumley DR, Stocker R. Live from under the lens: exploring microbial motility with dynamic imaging and microfluidics. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2015. PMID 26568072 · DOI
- Kirkegaard K, Ahlström A, Ingerslev HJ, Hardarson T. Choosing the best embryo by time lapse versus standard morphology. Fertil Steril. 2015. PMID 25527231 · DOI
- Weigert R, Porat-Shliom N, Amornphimoltham P. Imaging cell biology in live animals: ready for prime time. J Cell Biol. 2013. PMID 23798727 · DOI · PMC3691462
- Chen AA, Tan L, Suraj V, Reijo Pera R, Shen S. Biomarkers identified with time-lapse imaging: discovery, validation, and practical application. Fertil Steril. 2013. PMID 23499001 · DOI · PMC4283765
About this article
- Sources
- NLM Medical Subject Headings (definition, synonyms); NCBI PubMed (counts, identifiers); Europe PMC (open-access abstracts and citation counts).
- Verification
- Every reference was resolved against PubMed on 2026-11-04; title, year and DOI matched.
- Review state
- automated source verified; no human expert review has been recorded yet.
- Version
- 1, last updated 2026-11-04.
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Evidence strength
EvidenceHelix's computed view of the study designs behind this topic: how common meta-analyses, randomized trials and reviews are, how recent the literature is, and a plain-language reading. It describes the design mix of the literature. It is not a quality appraisal of any study, and it is not medical advice.