HeLa-Copter in Space

This glowing ball of orange and blue looks as if it might be a spacecraft soaring through the cosmos. However, it’s actually a so-called HeLa cell, with its mitochondria and a protein called actin visible within the cell membrane.

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HeLa-Copter in Space

This glowing ball of orange and blue looks as if it might be a spacecraft soaring through the cosmos. However, it’s actually a so-called HeLa cell, with its mitochondria and a protein called actin visible within the cell membrane.

What am I looking at?

This video shows the movement of both actin filaments and mitochondria within a HeLa cell. The actin filaments in this HeLa cell are orange, and the mitochondria are blue.

Biology in the background

Actin proteins group together to form a network of thin filaments that spread throughout eukaryotic cells. These filaments are involved in giving the cell its structure, allowing the cell to move, and much more. The actin network is dynamic, meaning that the filaments can either grow or shrink to fit the structural or movement requirements of the cell.

Mitochondria utilize a process called the Krebs cycle to generate energy for cells. The Krebs cycle turns compounds originating from ingested carbohydrates into energy-rich molecules that other cellular processes can use for fuel. This energy is often stored for a limited time in a molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), until it is needed for other cellular processes.

The mitochondria in a human cell range from 0.5 micrometer to 1 micrometer in diameter, or roughly 150 to 75 times smaller than the width of a human hair, while actin filaments are tiny – only about 7 nanometers wide, or roughly 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Technique

This video was created using confocal microscopy.

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Contributor(s)

Andy Moore, HHMI's Janelia Research Campus