Fluorescent Membrane Proteins in 3D

Membrane proteins in a 293HEK cell, from a de-differentiated human cell line used in medical research, are visible in this 3-D reconstruction. Two different membrane proteins were stained with rhodamine (red) and fluorescein (green) fluorescent dye probes; the emitted light appears yellow where both proteins are present. Images corresponding to "slices" through different levels of the cell were obtained using the deconvolution microscope of the UCSD Cancer Center's Digital Imaging Shared Resource. The slices were combined to form a volume dataset from which reconstructed images can be rendered from any viewpoint. The data were obtained by Eric Elenko in the laboratory of Marilyn Farquhar, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, UCSD School of Medicine, in collaboration with Brian Smith of the Digital Imaging Shared Resource. The 3-D rendering was created by David Nadeau of SDSC using the VISTA software toolkit. See the story - Shedding Light on 3-D Structures of Cells