Healthcare Technology - Imaging & Simulation
29 October 2008
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Heidelberg, Germany (OBBeC) - Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have utilized a newly designed microscope to view cells in a unique way. The scientists of Ernst Stelzer group at EMBL grow cells as cysts in three dimensional matrices to study them using the Single Plane Illumination Microscope.
According to EMBL, the three-dimensional spheres create more life-like conditions for the cells than two-dimensional layers on flat glass slides. Since Cells are social creatures, they communicate with their neighbours, monitor their environment and adapt their behaviour accordingly. In flat cultures they are deprived of much of this communication. Hence, microscope images of 3D cultures are more representative of the natural environment and show cell behaviour, shapes and arrangements as they really occur in the body.
Picture 1 [left] nuclei are stained with blue and microtubules and actin filaments, both components of the cell skeleton, in green and red respectively. Picture 2 [right] shows a similar cyst, this time with nuclei in blue and cell membranes in green.
The group has released new images of what at the first sight could be pictures of planets or other cosmic structures. Though, these images are actually microscope images of balls (cysts) of human kidney cells. They were taken by Emmanuel Reynaud, member of Ernst Stelzer's group at EMBL, with a widefield microscope. The cysts -- sacs with a liquid filled lumen surrounded by a single layer of cells -- were magnified 400 times. They consist of 50 cells and have a diameter of 350 micrometers, which is five times wider than a human hair.
