Imaging of chromosome segregation, gene expression and development in living cells

分子生物学技术的最新进展允许在活细胞中对单个蛋白质和细胞中的位置进行荧光标记。使用高倍显微镜，我们能够拍摄这些细胞生长、分裂和相互作用的过程。这种实时成像使我们能够获得详细的定量信息，了解细胞过程需要多长时间才能完成，不同细胞中存在什么样的变异，以及细胞的基因组成或环境的扰动如何改变细胞事件。此外，我们可以观察细胞如何生长和移动，然后相互作用，开始形成三维结构，这是人类器官的前身。如上所述，我们可以看到改变这些细胞的内外环境是如何改变它们的行为的。我们正在申请资金来升级现有的显微镜，使我们能够在理想的温度、营养和环境条件下培养细胞，并对它们进行长时间的成像。该设备还将使我们能够自动获取图像，以便我们可以同时从许多细胞中收集数据-增加我们收集的数据量，并减少在长时间实验中浪费在显微镜上的时间。

Recent advances in molecular biological techniques allows individual proteins and locations in cells to be fluorescently tagged in living cells. Using a high powered microscope we are able to film these cells as they grow, divide and interact with one another. This real-time imaging allows us to obtain detailed quantitative information about how long cellular processes take to complete, what sort of variation exists in different cells, and how perturbing either the genetic make-up of cells or their environment changes cellular events. In addition, we can observe how cells grow and move, and then interact with each other to begin forming three dimensional structures that are the forerunners of human organs. As above, we can see how changing both the internal and external environment of these cells change their behavior. We are requesting funds to upgrade an existing microscope so that we can grow cells in ideal temperature, nutrient and environmental conditions, and image them over long periods of time. This equipment will also allow us to automate the acquisition of images so that we can collect data from many cells simultaneously - increasing the amount of data we collect, and decreasing the time wasted monitoring the microscope during long experiments.