Airyscan Superresolution Microscopy to Study Trypanosomatid Cell Biology

Author(s):  
Jane Harmer ◽  
Asma Belbelazi ◽  
Martin Carr ◽  
Michael L. Ginger
2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (22) ◽  
pp. 3581-3594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Grove ◽  
Daniel J. Metcalf ◽  
Alex E. Knight ◽  
Silène T. Wavre-Shapton ◽  
Tony Sun ◽  
...  

Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) is a fundamental property of eukaryotic cells. Classical CME proceeds via the formation of clathrin-coated pits (CCPs) at the plasma membrane, which invaginate to form clathrin-coated vesicles, a process that is well understood. However, clathrin also assembles into flat clathrin lattices (FCLs); these structures remain poorly described, and their contribution to cell biology is unclear. We used quantitative imaging to provide the first comprehensive description of FCLs and explore their influence on plasma membrane organization. Ultrastructural analysis by electron and superresolution microscopy revealed two discrete populations of clathrin structures. CCPs were typified by their sphericity, small size, and homogeneity. FCLs were planar, large, and heterogeneous and present on both the dorsal and ventral surfaces of cells. Live microscopy demonstrated that CCPs are short lived and culminate in a peak of dynamin recruitment, consistent with classical CME. In contrast, FCLs were long lived, with sustained association with dynamin. We investigated the biological relevance of FCLs using the chemokine receptor CCR5 as a model system. Agonist activation leads to sustained recruitment of CCR5 to FCLs. Quantitative molecular imaging indicated that FCLs partitioned receptors at the cell surface. Our observations suggest that FCLs provide stable platforms for the recruitment of endocytic cargo.


mSphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ásgeir Ástvaldsson ◽  
Kjell Hultenby ◽  
Staffan G. Svärd ◽  
Jon Jerlström-Hultqvist

ABSTRACT The diplomonads are a group of understudied eukaryotic flagellates whose most prominent member is the human pathogen Giardia intestinalis. Methods commonly used in other eukaryotic model systems often require special optimization in diplomonads due to the highly derived character of their cell biology. We have optimized a proximity labeling protocol using pea ascorbate peroxidase (APEX) as a reporter for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to enable the study of ultrastructural cellular details in diplomonads. Currently available TEM-compatible tags require light-induced activation (1, 2) or are inactive in many cellular compartments (3), while ascorbate peroxidase has not been shown to have those limitations. Here, we have optimized the in vivo activities of two versions of pea ascorbate peroxidase (APXW41F and APEX) using the diplomonad fish parasite Spironucleus salmonicida, a relative of G. intestinalis. We exploited the well-known peroxidase substrates, Amplex UltraRed and 3,3′-diaminobenzidine (DAB), to validate the activity of the two tags and argue that APEX is the most stable version to use in Spironucleus salmonicida. Next, we fused APEX to proteins with established localization to evaluate the activity of APEX in different cellular compartments of the diplomonad cell and used Amplex UltraRed as well as antibodies along with superresolution microscopy to confirm the protein-APEX localization. The ultrastructural details of protein-APEX fusions were determined by TEM, and we observed marker activity in all cellular compartments tested when using the DAB substrate. Finally, we show that the optimized conditions established for S. salmonicida can be used in the related diplomonad G. intestinalis. IMPORTANCE The function of many proteins is intrinsically related to their cellular location. Novel methods for ascertainment of the ultrastructural location of proteins have been introduced in recent years, but their implementation in protists has so far not been readily realized. Here, we present an optimized proximity labeling protocol using the APEX system in the salmon pathogen Spironucleus salmonicida. This protocol was also applicable to the human pathogen Giardia intestinalis. Both organisms required extraneous addition of hemin to the growth medium to enable detectable peroxidase activity. Further, we saw no inherent limitation in labeling efficiency coupled to the cellular compartment, as evident with some other proximity labeling systems. We anticipate that the APEX proximity labeling system might offer a great resource to establish the ultrastructural localization of proteins across genetically tractable protists but might require organism-specific labeling conditions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 217 (8) ◽  
pp. 2777-2798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocío G. Sampayo ◽  
Andrés M. Toscani ◽  
Matthew G. Rubashkin ◽  
Kate Thi ◽  
Luciano A. Masullo ◽  
...  

Estrogen receptor α (ERα) is expressed in tissues as diverse as brains and mammary glands. In breast cancer, ERα is a key regulator of tumor progression. Therefore, understanding what activates ERα is critical for cancer treatment in particular and cell biology in general. Using biochemical approaches and superresolution microscopy, we show that estrogen drives membrane ERα into endosomes in breast cancer cells and that its fate is determined by the presence of fibronectin (FN) in the extracellular matrix; it is trafficked to lysosomes in the absence of FN and avoids the lysosomal compartment in its presence. In this context, FN prolongs ERα half-life and strengthens its transcriptional activity. We show that ERα is associated with β1-integrin at the membrane, and this integrin follows the same endocytosis and subcellular trafficking pathway triggered by estrogen. Moreover, ERα+ vesicles are present within human breast tissues, and colocalization with β1-integrin is detected primarily in tumors. Our work unravels a key, clinically relevant mechanism of microenvironmental regulation of ERα signaling.


Author(s):  
William H. Zucker

Planktonic foraminifera are widely-distributed and abundant zooplankters. They are significant as water mass indicators and provide evidence of paleotemperatures and events which occurred during Pleistocene glaciation. In spite of their ecological and paleological significance, little is known of their cell biology. There are few cytological studies of these organisms at the light microscope level and some recent reports of their ultrastructure.Specimens of Globigerinoides ruber, Globigerina bulloides, Globigerinoides conglobatus and Globigerinita glutinata were collected in Bermuda waters and fixed in a cold cacodylate-buffered 6% glutaraldehyde solution for two hours. They were then rinsed, post-fixed in Palade's fluid, rinsed again and stained with uranyl acetate. This was followed by graded ethanol dehydration, during which they were identified and picked clean of debris. The specimens were finally embedded in Epon 812 by placing each organism in a separate BEEM capsule. After sectioning with a diamond knife, stained sections were viewed in a Philips 200 electron microscope.


Author(s):  
W. Bernard

In comparison to many other fields of ultrastructural research in Cell Biology, the successful exploration of genes and gene activity with the electron microscope in higher organisms is a late conquest. Nucleic acid molecules of Prokaryotes could be successfully visualized already since the early sixties, thanks to the Kleinschmidt spreading technique - and much basic information was obtained concerning the shape, length, molecular weight of viral, mitochondrial and chloroplast nucleic acid. Later, additonal methods revealed denaturation profiles, distinction between single and double strandedness and the use of heteroduplexes-led to gene mapping of relatively simple systems carried out in close connection with other methods of molecular genetics.


Author(s):  
K. Jacobson ◽  
A. Ishihara ◽  
B. Holifield ◽  
F. Zhang

Our laboratory is concerned with understanding the dynamic structure of the plasma membrane with particular reference to the movement of membrane constituents during cell locomotion. In addition to the standard tools of molecular cell biology, we employ both fluorescence recovery after photo- bleaching (FRAP) and digitized fluorescence microscopy (DFM) to investigate individual cells. FRAP allows the measurement of translational mobility of membrane and cytoplasmic molecules in small regions of single, living cells. DFM is really a new form of light microscopy in that the distribution of individual classes of ions, molecules, and macromolecules can be followed in single, living cells. By employing fluorescent antibodies to defined antigens or fluorescent analogs of cellular constituents as well as ultrasensitive, electronic image detectors and video image averaging to improve signal to noise, fluorescent images of living cells can be acquired over an extended period without significant fading and loss of cell viability.


Author(s):  
A. Hakam ◽  
J.T. Gau ◽  
M.L. Grove ◽  
B.A. Evans ◽  
M. Shuman ◽  
...  

Prostate adenocarcinoma is the most common malignant tumor of men in the United States and is the third leading cause of death in men. Despite attempts at early detection, there will be 244,000 new cases and 44,000 deaths from the disease in the United States in 1995. Therapeutic progress against this disease is hindered by an incomplete understanding of prostate epithelial cell biology, the availability of human tissues for in vitro experimentation, slow dissemination of information between prostate cancer research teams and the increasing pressure to “ stretch” research dollars at the same time staff reductions are occurring.To meet these challenges, we have used the correlative microscopy (CM) and client/server (C/S) computing to increase productivity while decreasing costs. Critical elements of our program are as follows:1) Establishing the Western Pennsylvania Genitourinary (GU) Tissue Bank which includes >100 prostates from patients with prostate adenocarcinoma as well as >20 normal prostates from transplant organ donors.


Author(s):  
M.G. Baldini ◽  
S. Morinaga ◽  
D. Minasian ◽  
R. Feder ◽  
D. Sayre ◽  
...  

Contact X-ray imaging is presently developing as an important imaging technique in cell biology. Our recent studies on human platelets have demonstrated that the cytoskeleton of these cells contains photondense structures which can preferentially be imaged by soft X-ray imaging. Our present research has dealt with platelet activation, i.e., the complex phenomena which precede platelet appregation and are associated with profound changes in platelet cytoskeleton. Human platelets suspended in plasma were used. Whole cell mounts were fixed and dehydrated, then exposed to a stationary source of soft X-rays as previously described. Developed replicas and respective grids were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).


Author(s):  
Béatrice Satiat-Jeunemaitre ◽  
Chris Hawes

The comprehension of the molecular architecture of plant cell walls is one of the best examples in cell biology which illustrates how developments in microscopy have extended the frontiers of a topic. Indeed from the first electron microscope observation of cell walls it has become apparent that our understanding of wall structure has advanced hand in hand with improvements in the technology of specimen preparation for electron microscopy. Cell walls are sub-cellular compartments outside the peripheral plasma membrane, the construction of which depends on a complex cellular biosynthetic and secretory activity (1). They are composed of interwoven polymers, synthesised independently, which together perform a number of varied functions. Biochemical studies have provided us with much data on the varied molecular composition of plant cell walls. However, the detailed intermolecular relationships and the three dimensional arrangement of the polymers in situ remains a mystery. The difficulty in establishing a general molecular model for plant cell walls is also complicated by the vast diversity in wall composition among plant species.


Author(s):  
Ronald D. Edstrom ◽  
Xiuru Yang ◽  
Mary E. Gurnack ◽  
Marcia A. Miller ◽  
Rui Yang ◽  
...  

Many of the questions in biochemistry and cell biology are concerned with the relationships of proteins and other macromolecules in complex arrays which are responsible for carrying out metabolic sequences. The simplistic notion that the enzymes we isolate in soluble form from the cytoplasm were also soluble in vivo is being replaced by the concept that these enzymes occur in organized systems within the cell. In this newer view, the cytoplasm is organized and the “soluble enzymes” are in fact fixed in the cellular space and the only soluble components of the cell are small metabolites, inorganic ions etc. Further support for the concept of metabolic organization is provided by the evidence of metabolic channeling. It has been shown that for some metabolic pathways, the intermediates are not in free diffusion equilibrium with the bulk liquid in the cell but are passed along, more or less directly, from one enzyme to the next.


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