Growth Plate in Bloom

What am I looking at?

This is an arrangement of a growth plate from the femur of a two-week-old mouse. The image is repeated 12 times to create the blossom shape. New bone growth is stained green (1) and the nuclei of the surrounding cells are stained blue (2).

Biology in the background

In juvenile vertebrates, the bones contain a thin layer of cartilage, which is called the growth plate. The growth plate is responsible for bone elongation. It accomplishes this goal by continually producing new cartilage, which then becomes remodeled into bone tissue. As the animal approaches its adult size, the growth plate function slows and eventually ceases.

In mice, a growth plate is about 75 micrometers thick, or roughly the same size as the width of a human hair.

Technique

This image was created using confocal microscopy.