Bright Blebbing
This cell is undergoing a process called blebbing. Though that might sound like an activity on a children’s TV show, blebbing is the formation of irregular bulges in the plasma membrane as it separates from its cell’s cytoskeleton.
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DownloadBright Blebbing
This cell is undergoing a process called blebbing. Though that might sound like an activity on a children’s TV show, blebbing is the formation of irregular bulges in the plasma membrane as it separates from its cell’s cytoskeleton.
What am I looking at?
This is a video of a single intestinal epithelial cell labeled with a fluorescent probe for the protein actin as it undergoes the process of blebbing. Each of the “bubbles” you see coming off the cell is a bleb. The intensity of the coloration represents the concentration of actin – with dark red indicating a low concentration and bright yellow/gold representing a high concentration.
Biology in the background
Blebbing occurs when a call’s plasma membrane separates from its cytoskeleton and forms a membrane bulge filled with cytoplasm. This bulge will eventually separate from the cell, taking part of the cytoplasm with it. Blebbing is most often associated with the process of apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, but it can also happen during apocrine secretion – when part of the cell containing specific molecules breaks off, allowing those molecules go some other place where they’re needed.
These intestinal epithelial cells are about 30 micrometers in diameter, or roughly 2.5 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The blebs coming off this cell can range from 1 micrometer to 10 micrometers in diameter, or from roughly 75 times smaller to 7.5 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Technique
This video was created using confocal microscopy.
Angelo Morales, Tyska Laboratory, Vanderbilt University