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This is interesting and worth seeing .. think MartianBishop will like it particularly

37 replies

TwigTwoolett · 13/10/2006 19:05

life of a cell animation

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TwigTwoolett · 13/10/2006 19:52

I shan't be in the great and unwashed unanswered .. I shan't

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MegaLegs · 13/10/2006 20:01

That was amazing and quite psychadelic (Maaan) felt like I should be smoking something. Incredible though - stuff like that makes my brain melt.

Blandmum · 13/10/2006 20:28

beautiful

I have posted it for my students

hub2dee · 13/10/2006 21:05

mb - what was that 'walking thingy' supposed to be ?

Blandmum · 13/10/2006 21:08

It is a motor protein, I think, doing what , I habe no idea. Moving summat I gess!

the bit where the ribosome came in and 'read' the mrna strands and then, disengaged!

Quite amazing

hub2dee · 13/10/2006 21:13

LOL we need a voice over / subtitles !

I conclude motor proteins ROCK.

I wonder if their shoes wear out, and if they had to queue for ages to get a pair...

2pumpkin2pumpkin1 · 13/10/2006 21:26

Cool.

Don't you want to be 'there'?

Blandmum · 13/10/2006 22:34

moving a lipid molecule. If the school link up is fast enough I'm going to use that as a started with my sixth form on Monday.....we have just done protein synthesis and it show that happeneing.

So bloody wonderul, thank you for the link twig....made my night!

TwigTwoolett · 14/10/2006 00:16

am drunk (very) and feeling warm and fuzzy

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bloodcurdlingstrawb · 14/10/2006 00:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TwigTwoolett · 14/10/2006 10:05

am hungover now (very) and am bumping for morning crew

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Blandmum · 14/10/2006 13:43

And I will bump it again.

It is quite amazing. I have watched it several times and I can now work out some other bits. It is part of a bigger film that looks at how a white blood cell gets out of the blood vessel, and into the tissue where it is needed. All of the things tha happen do so to let this occur, IYSWIM

Blandmum · 14/10/2006 13:47

Here is what seems to be an accurate description of what is going on]

'Harvard university commissioned an animation of the internals of a cell (online version is a truncated version of the full 7-minute version). It's meant to be fairly accurate - structures were derived from known structure information wherever possible - and more importantly, it looks cool.

I haven't found an online explanation of what you're seeing, so this is what I saw - bear in mind this is a very quick description typed in at 3am, so it's a bit wishy washy :-P

You are in a blood vessel, then zoom in to a cell rolling along the endothelium wall (basically looking for injuries or cells that are generally "upset"). The closeup of the long spindly proteins are, I believe, contact proteins between the two cells. You then see a cell membrane - not the GCSE model, but what it actually looks like - including a lipid raft surfing containing a group of localised proteins. You then zoom out and see some of the general cytoskeletal structure under the cell membrane (if anyone can identify specifics, please let me know).

You see an actin filament being manufactured from its constituent monomers; these fibres are instrumental in pulling subcellular structures around the cell and also for providing a framework for materials to be transported around the cell on. A protein comes in and chop the actin fibre - the manufacture and dissociation of both actin and microtubules is a regulated, dynamic process. Similarly you see microtubule formation and a microtubule catastrophe - when microtubules dissociate, it's very fast. Then the coolest bit of the video - a microtubule motor protein pulls a vesicle to its destination in the cell. The cellular motor proteins really do look like this - their mechanism of action is basically a walk forwards.

The aniation fades to the nuclear surface, and some mRNA pops out of the nuclear pores - these molecules are derived from DNA and contain the code to make a single protein. They form loops and a ribosome comes in and scans for the start of the protein coding sequence. It moves along the mRNA and a protein comes out of the end. An orange and blue thing floats across the screen for no apparent reason. Then you see another ribosome land on the ER translocon and repeat the protein synthesis process - it injects the protein straight into the ER, which is the beginning of the pathway for proteins that are required on the cell membrane or outside the cell (there are other reasons for sending a protein down the ER pathway). You see the walker again, then a shot of some vesicles fusing with the Golgi body - a series of membrane stacks that forms a protein modification machine.

The animation then cuts to outside the cell again, and you see some proteins being thrown out by exocytosis - in the process, some integrins are placed on the cell surface. The cell they are on decides it wants to form an adhesive interaction with the basal lamina, because after about 10 seconds the integrin molecules all "stand up" - they move into their active, adhesive form. Then you see the blood vessel again, and the cell that was rolling along the wall enters into a cellular junction and disappears.'

TwigTwoolett · 14/10/2006 15:42

I have no idea what any of that means

still .. its very pretty

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Blandmum · 14/10/2006 15:47

I can explain most of it, but you would probably lose the will to live!

Suffice to say it coveres a series of real actions that have to happen to allow a white cell to leace the blood stream, and enter a tissue to kill bacteria etc.

You do all of this stuff millions upon millions of times every minute of every day.

isn't biology wonderful!

TwigTwoolett · 14/10/2006 15:50

or as ds says "that's how your blood fights the bugs then mummy"

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madmarchscare · 14/10/2006 15:57

Oh I say, a round of applause for mb. What a lovely piece of animation Twig.

Blandmum · 14/10/2006 15:59

Twig, tell you ds he is a real scientist in the making!

I didn't type out the decription though! I copied it from the web, but it does seem to be accurate!

2pumpkin2pumpkin1 · 14/10/2006 16:50

I wonder whether the blue & orange thing floating accross the screen after protein syntesis is a badly made protein (blue) being taken to teh proteasome (grey cylinder thing) by a chaperone protein (orange) to be destroyed?

Blandmum · 14/10/2006 16:56

Don't know what the grey thingie is. It is hard to assess the size. I wondered if it was a mitochondion, but you could be right. It is hard to tell without a commentary. the whole thing runs for 8 minutes and I would love to see it.

2pumpkin2pumpkin1 · 14/10/2006 17:11

I agree - if you should happen get the whole version let me know. Proteasomes are huge IIRC. Just looking at the animators website it is apparently the first in a series of similar animations. I shall be keeping my eye out.

Did find another short demo on the site showing various bits that teh company have done inc. a close-up of the kinesin walking molecule here . This web-address is going to take you to the home page I think so select 'animation' at the bottom & the demo should come on automatically. There are some other short clips on there but I think we have seen the most impressive my far.

There are quite a few illustrations there too. I don't know whether you could use them or not.

I am going to E-mail this around work. This clip just somes up exactly what we spend all day 'doing'.

2pumpkin2pumpkin1 · 14/10/2006 17:16

I agree - if you should happen get the whole version let me know. Proteasomes are huge IIRC. Just looking at the animators website it is apparently the first in a series of similar animations. I shall be keeping my eye out.

Did find another short demo on the site showing various bits that teh company have done inc. a close-up of the kinesin walking molecule \link{http://www.xvivo.net/here}. This web-address is going to take you to the home page I think so select 'animation' at the bottom & the demo should come on automatically. There are some other short clips on there but I think we have seen the most impressive my far.

There are quite a few illustrations there too. I don't know whether you could use them or not.

I am going to E-mail this around work. This clip just somes up exactly what we spend all day 'doing'.

Blandmum · 14/10/2006 17:17

Ohhhtell, tell, what are you'doing'????? [excited emoticon]

It is quite magnificent, isn't it? I'm so looking forward to Monday when I'll show it to the sixth form. We have just done cell biology, and we are doing protein synthesis now!

taMummy · 14/10/2006 17:20

On a lighter note, have you all seen the 1970s protein synthesis dance video? It's in various places, like here . We've all been joking about it ever since it did the round recently, planning all our experiments through the medium of interpretive dance.

2pumpkin2pumpkin1 · 14/10/2006 17:29

I'm am molecular biologist & work with protein biochemists & immunologists.

DNA, RNA, Protein synthesis, WBCs at work it captures it all.

(I know most of my stuff is in vitro & recombinant but it is still all relevant). I LOVE cell biology. I am the sad one that keeps all the fliers suppliers sen out - just cos they look cool.

I think you could be right about the mitochondrian. I was trying to 'link' it to the protein synthesis but imagine a proteasome would be more bobbly like the ribosome. Its made up of lots of sub-units too which isn't a feature of the big grey cylinder.