Cellular Spiderwebs
Spiders move around their webs by walking along the strands of silk. Similarly, cells use a network of molecular “highways” called microtubules to move cellular and molecular components around. This image shows a “map” of these highways in several adjacent cells.
Media For Educational Use Only
DownloadCellular Spiderwebs
Spiders move around their webs by walking along the strands of silk. Similarly, cells use a network of molecular “highways” called microtubules to move cellular and molecular components around. This image shows a “map” of these highways in several adjacent cells.
What am I looking at?
In this image, you can see multiple cells with their microtubules labeled in blue/white. The lighter blue areas have a higher concentration of microtubules (1) than the darker blue and purple areas (2). The dark spots in the middle of the microtubules represent the cells’ nuclei (3) – because the type of microtubules seen here are not present in a cell’s nucleus. The white and red lines above the dark spots are microtubules that are either above or below the nucleus, from the viewer’s vantage point.
Biology in the background
Microtubules serve many purposes within a cell. One of their most important functions is to act as molecular “highways” along which materials can move throughout the cell. Microtubules are made of proteins called tubulins. These small proteins come together in a structured and repeating pattern that eventually forms a tube shape. Then other proteins that can carry cellular components such as small molecules or even entire organelles attach to the microtubules and “walk” along them to move their cargo around the interior of the cell.
A microtubule is about 25 nanometers in diameter, or roughly 4,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Technique
This image was taken using fluorescence microscopy.
Andy Moore, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Research Campus