{"id":34730,"date":"2021-01-05T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=34730"},"modified":"2024-03-22T14:04:10","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T13:04:10","slug":"potw2101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2101\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s like a party in your brain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Looking a lot like flashy lights and streamers left over from New Year\u2019s Eve festivities, these decorations are hardly that.&nbsp;This image represents work in EMBL\u2019s Zaugg and Noh Groups in which postdoc Mikael Marttinen used human stem cells to generate neurons and brain immune cells (microglia) that were co-cultured \u2013 growing them together in a dish.&nbsp;Not only is this a pretty picture, it represents an advance that will help EMBL researchers study neurodegenerative diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The green stain (Alexa Fluor 488) shows a protein known as class III beta-tubulin, which forms long (and apparently flashy) filaments known as microtubules, and is an explicit marker for neurons. Those blingy pink or red dazzlers (getting their colour from a dye called Alexa Fluor 594) are another kind of protein known as TMEM119, which lights up microglia \u2013 the brain\u2019s immune cells. Lastly, a fluorescent blue stain called DAPI lights up cell nuclei. This image shows that Marttinen was able to generate a co-culture system with both neurons and microglia, making it a good model system to study diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson\u2019s disease, or Alzheimer\u2019s at the molecular level.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Credit: Mikael Marttinen\/EMBL<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it <a href=\"mailto:mathias.jaeger@embl.org\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fluorescent dyes light up a cellular community of neurons and brain immune cells (microglia), which were derived from stem cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":34742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17591],"tags":[1012,594,5654,615,741,225],"embl_taxonomy":[19345,19413],"class_list":["post-34730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science-technology","tag-fluorescence-microscopy","tag-microglia","tag-neurodegenerative-disease","tag-neuron","tag-noh","tag-zaugg","embl_taxonomy-noh-group-visiting","embl_taxonomy-zaugg-group"],"acf":{"embl_taxonomy_term_who":false,"embl_taxonomy_term_what":false,"embl_taxonomy_term_where":false,"featured":false,"show_featured_image":false,"color":"#007B53","link_color":"#fff","article_intro":"","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"in_this_article":false,"youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","press_contact":"None","vf_locked":false,"field_target_display":"embl","source_article":false},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"fe59a59f-fd7d-49b3-b3e4-bdd33a6642c3\";i:2;s:36:\"eb3946ec-c9ad-4ae3-a2e0-8e83fd0e0587\";}","parents":[],"name":["Noh Group (Visiting)"],"slug":"noh-group-visiting","description":"What &gt; Genome Biology &gt; Noh Group (Visiting)"},{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"bd910dd7-0cda-4618-8bfa-d37fbda8438e\";i:2;s:36:\"1da41039-0c1d-4543-9cc5-7da2b51266f6\";}","parents":[],"name":["Zaugg Group"],"slug":"zaugg-group","description":"What &gt; Molecular Systems Biology &gt; Zaugg Group"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>It\u2019s like a party in your brain | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Human stem cells are \u2018lit\u2019 up to help EMBL scientists model the cellular community of neurons &amp; brain immune cells.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2101\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s like a party in your brain | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Human stem cells are \u2018lit\u2019 up to help EMBL scientists model the cellular community of neurons &amp; 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