Cellular Torture

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?
i-ddabe9d5ff64053f56ec5711525becef-weird.jpg
Note that we are simply viewing the fluorescence - hence the black and white image.

Here is another injected cell with giant DNA aggregates:
i-b8d9ccaa51bd351fd982a3c3d8a3781e-weird1.jpg

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:
i-991ce57720f773b825f791dee5af7ea9-weird2.jpg

Here's a closeup of those weird DNA structures:
i-3902cd4f73df2d69cfca655d7a100d4b-weird3.jpg

I have no clue what these are (RNA stress granules perhaps?)

More like this

God bless you cell biologists. I love the way you like to interpret random blobs.

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.

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.

Dude, it's a pinwheel galaxy.

By Mustafa Mond, FCD (not verified) on 06 Apr 2007 #permalink

I know nothing, but those are awesome photos. Very interesting.