A Cellular Dance Party

What am I looking at?

These are cells derived from monkey kidney tissue, growing in culture. They were filmed at a very slow frame rate overnight, and you are seeing the video played back here at a higher speed to show the movement of the cells and the changes over time in the blue endoplasmic reticulum and the orange vimentin filaments. Cells that appear purple express fluorescent labels for both endoplasmic reticulum and vimentin filaments.

Click on the right arrow to see a wider-angle, sped-up video of these same cells.

Biology in the background

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a continuous network of membranous compartments distributed throughout eukaryotic cells on the surface of which protein synthesis takes place. There are two types of ER in a cell: rough ER and smooth ER. The rough ER membrane is studded with ribosomes, where proteins are synthesized. The smooth ER is where some lipids, phospholipids, and steroids are synthesized and some protein folding and processing occur.

Just as the skeleton of a mammal gives structure and support to its body, a cell’s cytoskeleton gives the cell shape and stability. Among the primary structures of the cytoskeleton are so-called intermediate filaments, which are composed of a variety of proteins, including vimentin. The stability that such filaments provide is particularly important in the cells of the skin and the nervous system.

This type of monkey kidney cell has a diameter of about 20 to 25 micrometers, or roughly three times as small as the width of a human hair.

Technique

This video was created using confocal microscopy.