Advanced microscopy: laser scanning confocal microscopy.

Fluorescence microscopy is an important and fundamental tool for biomedical research. Optical microscopy is almost non-invasive and allows highly spatially resolved images of organisms, cells, macromolecular complexes, and biomolecules to be obtained. Generally speaking, the architecture of the observed structures is not significantly modified and the environmental conditions can be kept very close to physiological reality.

Identification and characterization of an unusual class I myosin involved in vesicle traffic in Trypanosoma brucei.

Myosins are a multimember family of motor proteins with diverse functions in eukaryotic cells. African trypanosomes possess only two candidate myosins and thus represent a useful system for functional analysis of these motors. One of these candidates is an unusual class I myosin (TbMyo1) that is expressed at similar levels but organized differently during the life cycle of Trypanosoma brucei.

Measuring autophagy in macrophages.

Macroautophagy is a conserved intracellular homeostatic mechanism for the degradation of cytosolic constituents. Autophagy can promote cell survival by providing essential amino acids from the breakdown of macromolecules during periods of nutrient deprivation, and can remove damaged or excess organelles, such as mitochondria and peroxisomes. More recently, autophagy has been shown to play an important role in innate and adaptive immune responses to pathogenic bacteria in macrophages and dendritic cells.

The glycosylphosphatidylinositol-PLC in Trypanosoma brucei forms a linear array on the exterior of the flagellar membrane before and after activation.

Bloodstream forms of Trypanosoma brucei contain a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (GPI-PLC) that cleaves the GPI-anchor of the variable surface glycoprotein (VSG). Its location in trypanosomes has been controversial. Here, using confocal microscopy and surface labelling techniques, we show that the GPI-PLC is located exclusively in a linear array on the outside of the flagellar membrane, close to the flagellar attachment zone, but does not co-localize with the flagellar attachment zone protein, FAZ1.

Characterisation of the plasma membrane subproteome of bloodstream form Trypanosoma brucei.

Proteome analysis by conventional approaches is biased against hydrophobic membrane proteins, many of which are also of low abundance. We have isolated plasma membrane sheets from bloodstream forms of Trypanosoma brucei by subcellular fractionation, and then applied a battery of complementary protein separation and identification techniques to identify a large number of proteins in this fraction. The results of these analyses have been combined to generate a subproteome for the pellicular plasma membrane of bloodstream forms of T.

Images of mitochondrial UCP 1 in mouse thymocytes using confocal microscopy.

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the constitutive expression of mitochondrial uncoupling protein 1 (UCP 1) in pure thymocytes using laser scanning confocal microscopic imagery. To that end we probed thymocytes from UCP 1 knock-out and wild-type mice. Mitochondrial location in thymocytes was determined using Mitotracker Red and the nucleus was labelled using Hoescht stain.