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You say "ladybird," I say "ladybug"
Autofluorescence in the face of a little two-spotted ladybird, the British and Canadian name for a ladybug.
Angus Rae / Australian National University
Nikon Small World Photomicrography Contest
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A fluorescent ant by Dr. Jan Michels.
Salvia mellifera, black sage, is a perennial shrub in the mint/sage family native from central California down through the top of Baja California. It is part of the cast of plants present in coastal sage and chaparral habitat, thriving only in a specific range of rainfall in a mediterranean climate. The flowers host a variety of pollinators including butterflies, hummingbirds, and native bees and its seeds, like other Salvia species, are abundant and provide food for animals and birds. The fragrant leaves contain chemicals used by the Chumash to treat pain and a unique spicy honey is derived from the plant in the modern day.
Trust Your Eyes
"Can’t see the wood for the trees". It isn’t just an old English proverb, it’s also a problem scientists grapple with when imaging whole organs during animal model experiments. They want to see the fine details (the trees) but also capture the entire organ (the wood). Researchers now present an affordable, rapid and high-resolution approach to image whole organs in 3D called TRUST (Translational Rapid Ultraviolet-excited Sectioning Tomography). Using an inexpensive ultraviolet LED light and a colour camera, TRUST imaging of sections through mouse tissue captured images of fluorescent dyes bound to specific molecules and autofluorescence generated by unstained tissue. The result? Detailed 3D images of whole mouse organs, such as the brain and heart, as well as tissue networks, such as blood vessels of the brain (pictured) and nerves. Entire mouse embryos were also imaged, revealing how TRUST can help investigate health and disease, as well as development.
Written by Lux Fatimathas
Video from work by Wentao Yu and colleagues
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in eLife, November 2022
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Dudleya cymosa ssp. pumila is a succulent native and endemic to California, meaning it cannot be found growing naturally anywhere else in the world. This plant is most often found on north-facing canyon walls and roadcuts throughout the transverse ranges (a series of mountains that run east-west through CA instead of the usual north-south.) Dudleya in general have special adaptations which allow them to survive challenging environments, in this case growing in the wet but coldest part of the year and surviving a long, very hot, and very dry summer. Even in this subspecies there are many included forms, with varying traits such as flower color, leaf farina, altitude, etc., which goes in hand with Dudleya being a genus of complicated and still-developing taxonomy with quite a lot of undescribed species. Molecular phylogeny is making this possible by sampling genetic material to determine evolutionary relationships. This process is further complicated by the fact that Dudleya is a highly poached genus and many populations of unique plants are threatened by sprawling human development and introduced herbivores before they even have a chance to be recognized. Dudleya is one of my favorite genera of plants, so expect to see more of them in my posts in the future!
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Spotlight on Microglia
The brain’s microglial cells wear many hats, from supporting neurons and fighting against microbes to clearing away debris and dead neurons. For many years, we thought that all microglia perform these different roles. However, scientists have recently shown that there are in fact two types of microglia. Using imaging flow cytometry to study microglia in animal brains (example cells shown here in each column), they found that 70% of microglia were ‘autofluorescence-positive’ (middle columns), meaning they absorbed light and emitted certain colours. The remaining 30% didn’t emit any light (left and right columns). Digging deeper, the team found that compared to autofluorescence-negative microglia, autofluorescence-positive microglia contained more proteins that help store and clear cell waste. These microglia could hold the key to new therapies that prevent the accumulation of cellular waste, which is known to lead to diseases of the brain as we age.
Written by Gaëlle Coulllon
Image adapted from work by Jeremy Carlos Burns and colleagues
Multiple Sclerosis & Neurorepair Research Unit, Biogen, Cambridge, MA, USA
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in eLife, June 2020
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Blueberry flowers in UVIVF.
Cereus flower closer up. @cpburrowsphoto on IG!
