Rapid simulation of wide-angle scattering from mitochondria in single cells.

It has been shown that the mitochondria are the dominant source of large-angle light scattering from human cells. In the limit of small mitochondria, we show that the large-angle (isotropic) light scattering of mitochondria may be analyzed and simulated with an adaptation of classical X-ray diffraction theory. In addition, we show that this approach may be extended to the case of anisotropic scatter. These results enable the rapid simulation and analysis of mitochondrial scattering patterns and allow the determination of some aspects of cell structure directly from experimental scattering patterns.