Image365

The photo for day 311 of #LMB365 shows the north wing of the building where members of the Neurobiology Division are working hard. When people leave the building, detectors in the offices and write-up areas identify that staff have left for the day and turn lights off automatically if they have been accidentally left on. This helps reduce energy consumption and has the added benefit of lowering the amount of light pollution that the building emits.

This image for day 310 of #LMB365 shows one of the four plate pouring machines used daily by the LMB’s dedicated Media Prep team. Each machine is used to pour both standard and specially requested plates and in total the LMB uses over 200,000 plates a year.

This image for day 309 of #LMB365 shows mouse fibroblasts where surface receptors have been clustered into spots using new synthetic polymers. Imaging is performed using sub-cellular light sheet microscopy, a state-of-the-art microscopy technique established at the LMB by James Manton, that is able to resolve cellular details with unprecedented temporal resolution. The Derivery lab is using this technique to study the molecular mechanisms of endocytosis and trafficking of receptors and cell fate determinants in cells.

Day 308 of #LMB365 shows two mysterious visitors who on the 31st of October gave LMB staff some grave reminders about the need for good posture. After all – a skeleton is for life, not just for Halloween…

This experiment by Hugh Pelham’s group, seen here on day 307 of #LMB365, demonstrates quality control of membrane proteins. A GFP-tagged SNARE protein (yellow) that normally goes to the plasma membrane in yeast (right) is completely redirected to the vacuole if an acidic residue is placed in the single C-terminal transmembrane domain (left). This aberrant transmembrane domain is recognised in the Golgi apparatus by a ubiquitin ligase, in this case Tul1, and ubiquitination of the protein directs it to the vacuole. The Nomarski image of the cells has been rendered as 3D elevation.

Ice contamination is the last thing you want to see on your cryo-EM grid, as charging of the ice under the electron beam is a common source of image drift at high magnification. However, sometimes while screening your sample it is nice to come across such a perfectly hexagonal ice crystal as seen here on day 306 of #LMB365