Alex Palazzo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Toronto.
Well I tried some weird experiments on my cells, injecting fluorescent DNA. The result is some psychedelic images. The cells clearly were not happy.
Here is some fluorescent DNA molecules that aggregated in the cell's cytoplasm. Cellular chickenpox?
Note that we are simply viewing the fluorescence - hence the black and white image.
Here is another injected cell with giant DNA aggregates:
For non-cell biologists I've outlined the cell nucleus and the cytoplasm. Note that these structures are not in the nucleus but rather are on top of the nucleus:
Here's a closeup of those weird DNA structures:
I have no clue what these are (RNA stress granules perhaps?)
Comments
God bless you cell biologists. I love the way you like to interpret random blobs.
Posted by: BTM | April 3, 2007 7:56 PM
Lysosomes? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that cells have an intrinsic mechanism to aggregate foreign DNA. It might even be a protein-DNA interation.
Posted by: D.D. | April 3, 2007 9:48 PM
"Weird structures"?!? F()CK Yeah!
Posted by: Jeb, FCD | April 3, 2007 11:11 PM
DD,
They're not lysosomes, I checked by phase where lysosomes show up as black dots. Also the cells were fixed 1-2min after injecting - a bit too fast for lysosome accumulation, although I could be wrong.
Posted by: apalazzo | April 4, 2007 7:35 AM
Is this linearized DNA or circular? Do you see a difference between the 2?
Posted by: matt | April 4, 2007 1:48 PM
It's actually a single stranded DNA oligo. I've injected plenty of dsDNA in the nucleus to express RNA/proteins but never fluorescent dsDNA so I don't know how that would localize.
Posted by: apalazzo | April 5, 2007 8:29 AM
Dude, it's a pinwheel galaxy.
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | April 6, 2007 9:41 AM
How many labels are there on each DNA molecule? Is this of some consequence?
Posted by: Curious | April 8, 2007 2:39 AM
I know nothing, but those are awesome photos. Very interesting.
Posted by: sarah | October 9, 2007 10:55 AM