What is this gorgeous image? Your guesses spanned an amazing range. Here are some of them.
“Aurora borealis? Or New Years fireworks?”
“Is it a geode? Or a kind of mold?”
“It's a false-color image of something... perhaps a mob of protozoa? Cancer cells? A really strange gem?”
“I have not a clue. Bacteria? Yarn? Microscopic image of bacteria on yarn?”
“A close-up of fabric in a multicolored scarf?”
“I think it is a peacock feather under a microscope.”
“I think it might be a picture of neurons.”
It is indeed a picture of neurons. But not just any old neurons.
It's a Brainbow!
Timequake and Anonim both correctly guessed it was neurons. Relentless got it exactly. “Is this the brainbow? This was a seminal paper published in Nature in 2007 by Livet et. al at Harvard ... they used transgenics to combinatorially express various combinations of fluorescent proteins to indelibly and uniquely mark neurons in the brain under the control of a promoter system. The wide varieties of colors in this picture, as well as the neuronal morphology of the fixed cells, make me think of that :)”
The Harvard research team that developed this ingenious technology -- which is incredibly useful as well as incredibly beautiful -- also came up with the apt name. Here's a good description of how it works, excerpted from www.livescience.com.
Borrowing genes from bacteria, coral and jellyfish, scientists have set mice brains aglow in a bold panoply of colors, revealing the intricate highways and byways of neuronal connections.
The resulting images, which resemble abstract color paintings, are both beautiful and informative. They look like they could hang in a modern art museum and are among the most detailed images of neuronal connections ever made.
"In the same way that a television monitor mixes red, green and blue to depict a wide array of colors, the combination of three or more fluorescent proteins in neurons can generate many different hues," said study team member Jeff Lichtman.
But instead of red, green and blue light, Brainbow relies on cyan, red, and yellow gene pigments. The red gene pigment comes from coral, while the cyan and blue pigments are modified versions of a fluorescent green pigment found in jellyfish.
Using genetic recombination techniques, the researchers bundled the pigment-expressing genes into DNA packages and inserted them into the genomes of developing mice. As the mice develop, the pigment genes get divvied up between the rodent cells. Study team member Jean Livet likens the DNA package to a "molecular slot machine."
"Each cell would play the slot machine and be attributed a different color," Livet told LiveScience. cont.
As Relentless noted, the method was described in a seminal paper that made the cover of Nature magazine. Here's the Editor's summary:
"More than a century ago, Ramón Y Cajal's use of Golgi staining on nerve cells opened the door to modern neurobiology: by staining a small number of neurons, previously invisible axons and dendrites could be seen as they coursed through surrounding tissue. But Golgi staining can label only a small number of cells in one colour.
Now, a team from Harvard University has developed a method that enables many distinct cells within a brain circuit to be viewed at one time. The 'Brainbow' technique can paint hundreds of individual neurons with distinctive hues, producing a detailed map of neuronal circuitry. This technology should not only boost mapping efforts in normal or diseased brains, but could also be applied to other complex cell populations, such as the immune system."
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