Cellular Handshake

These two cells are able to contact each other via specialized structures called filopodia. The filopodia are full of a structural protein called actin that builds and rebuilds a cell’s scaffolding, allowing these cellular “hands” to continue to shake.

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Cellular Handshake

These two cells are able to contact each other via specialized structures called filopodia. The filopodia are full of a structural protein called actin that builds and rebuilds a cell’s scaffolding, allowing these cellular “hands” to continue to shake.

What am I looking at?

This is a video of two so-called HeLa cells that are labeled with a marker for an actin cross-linking protein. The thin tendrils extending from the cell and waving around are actin-filled filipodia. This video is depth-coded for color, which means that cooler colors like blue and purple are closer to the viewer and warmer colors like yellow are farther away from the viewer.

Click on the right arrow to see another video with a different view of the same phenomenon.

Biology in the background

Actin cross-linking proteins are responsible for organizing actin fibers into an adaptable and constantly changing scaffolding that allows cells to move, change shape, and do much more. You can see (from the intensity of the colors in the video) that these cross-linking proteins are especially dense in the filopodia extending from the cells. This allows the cells to move in their external environment.

These cross-linking proteins vary in size but are all extremely small. Most are around 3.5 nanometers across, or roughly 22,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Technique

This video was created using confocal microscopy.

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Contributor(s)

Matt Tyska , Vanderbilt University