Blood and Bile

What am I looking at?

This is a cross section through the liver of an adult zebrafish. The blood vessels are gold (1). The bile ducts are blue (2). And the nuclei are red (3). You can see red nuclei within the blood vessels because red blood cells in fish, unlike those in mammals, do have nuclei. The large blue areas on the left side and at top right of the liver are abdominal muscles (4).

Biology in the background

The liver is the treatment and refinery center of the body. The cells of the liver, called hepatocytes, remove toxins from the blood, create compounds used in digestion, produce hormones and hormone-binding and transport proteins that are released into the bloodstream. In this image, you can see the intricate network of blood vessels throughout the entire liver, providing maximum access to the hepatocytes.

The bile ducts that you see in blue carry bile, a fluid that contains many compounds useful in digestion, from the liver to the digestive system.

The liver in this image is about 1 millimeter across, or roughly 13 times larger than the width of a human hair.

Technique

This image was created using confocal microscopy.