#epithelial cells

human tongue filiform papillae under a light microscope at 40X magnification (optic lens is 10X and constant, scanning objective lens is 4X)

human tongue filiform papillae under a light microscope at 100X magnification (low power objective lens is 10X)

human tongue filiform papillae under a light microscope at 400X magnification (high power objective lens is 40X)

photos taken by me

Follow that Cargo!

Analysing the details – including both spatial and organisational – of molecular cargo being transported through the secretory pathway in fruit fly epithelial cells using a vesicle tracking software tool called MSP Tracker

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Jennifer H. Richens, Mariia Dmitrieva and Helen L. Zenner, and colleagues

MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Francis Crick Avenue, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, UK

Image contributed by the authors under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence

Published in PLOS Biology, April 2025

Mechanics of Dividing

Quantitative analysis of hundreds of epithelial cell divisions reveals the stresses and forces experienced at a particular phase of the cell cycle influence the orientation of cell division in the developing fruit fly embryo

Read the published research article here

Video from work by Guy B. Blanchard and Elena Scarpa, and colleagues

Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, UK

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Development, May 2024

Competing Interests

Greater understanding of the molecular signals involved in elimination of cells that might become cancer, by the normal epithelial cells – a process known as cell competition – and how this process is overridden to promote tumour progression

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Kazuki Nakai and colleagues

Division of Cancer Biology, Research Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Tokyo University of Science, Noda, Chiba, Japan

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, November 2023

Welcome Invaders?

Looking like a tangle of tubes, glomerular tufts are the functional units of your kidneys, filtering blood to create urine. The tufts form a filtration barrier using endothelial cells, podocytes and connective tissue, while parietal epithelial cells (PECs) line the capsules in which tufts sit – this anatomy is essential to proper kidney function. In the kidney disease focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), tufts become scarred – but only in parts, with some regions remaining healthy. Researchers investigate how in a mouse FSGS model. Using immunohistochemistry to identify PECs and podocytes in sections of FSGS kidneys, the images of which were then digitally ‘stitched together’, they found layers of PECs invaded scarred regions (pictured). However, this invasion also protected neighbouring regions by making contacts with podocytes to restore the filtration barrier. These healthy regions remained connected to the tube through which essential nutrients are filtered out. Together, this reveals how parts of FSGS kidneys can remain functional.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Video from work by Laura Miesen and colleagues

Department of Pathology, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, March 2022