The Birth of a New Organelle

Peroxisomes ensure proper brain development, metabolize fats from our diet, and detoxify the byproducts of cell metabolism. Remarkably, this crucial organelle can be built entirely from scratch— this image captures the birth of an organelle, with the bright white dots of the new peroxisomes sparkling against the backdrop of cells that used to have none at all. 

A constellation of new peroxisomes forming in otherwise peroxisome-deficient cells. The expression of a gene induced these cells to reform these structures. This constellation-like pattern contains information about the formation of a new organelle, as well as its metabolic activity. These images were acquired using spinning disk confocal microscopy, from cultured human cells grown on glass plates. Fluorescent dye-conjugated antibodies label peroxisome proteins (white), while cellular nuclei are stained with a DNA-binding dye (blue). By assessing which genes are required for the process of peroxisome formation, researchers in the Gardner Lab are building a more comprehensive understanding of this cellular organelle that is critical to early development, aging, as well as severe metabolic disorders. The scale bar represents 10 microns.

List of all that contributed: Soham Chowdhury, Andrew Brown, Sambhav Jain, Brooke Gardner