{"id":39646,"date":"2021-06-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=39646"},"modified":"2025-02-19T13:41:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T12:41:31","slug":"potw2124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2124\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetary egg cells"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Oocytes \u2013 the cells that will become egg cells \u2013 are formed before birth. They form in the ovary and remain there for a long time: up to 50 years in the case of humans and several months in mice, all the while retaining their ability to combine with a sperm cell to give rise to a young organism. In response to hormones, a number of oocytes periodically grow and develop, culminating in the ovulation usually of one egg in humans and multiple eggs in mice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This image shows a region of a mouse ovary that has been cleared \u2013 a process by which the optical properties of usually opaque tissue samples are modified to render them transparent. Without light being absorbed or scattered, it becomes possible to image samples in greater detail. This image shows oocytes at various stages of maturity. Their dimensions range from 10 to 50 micrometres (thousandths of a millimetre).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To take this image, Arturo D\u2019Angelo in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crg.eu\/en\/elvan-boke\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Elvan B\u00f6ke\u2019s lab<\/a> at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) used the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/groups\/advanced-light-microscopy-core-facility\/booking-and-equipment\/\">MuVi SPIM<\/a> microscope in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/groups\/mesoscopic-imaging-facility\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mesoscopic Imaging Facility <\/a>at EMBL Barcelona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Credit: Arturo D\u2019Angelo\/CRG; Montserrat Coll Llad\u00f3\/EMBL Barcelona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"mailto:media@embl.org\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">submit it by email<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As evocative as a constellation of planets, these egg cells within a mouse ovary are at different stages of maturity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":39654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,17591],"tags":[10000,10002,9998,1932,11022],"embl_taxonomy":[1804],"class_list":["post-39646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-mesoscopic-imaging-facility","tag-mouse-ovary","tag-muvi-spim","tag-oocyte","tag-spotlight","embl_taxonomy-services-and-facilities"],"acf":{"featured":false,"show_featured_image":false,"article_intro":"","related_links":false,"source_article":false,"in_this_article":false,"press_contact":"None","vf_locked":false,"field_target_display":""},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:2:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"ef0437fc-a5b7-4c73-bcfd-63bff16cb35e\";}","parents":[],"name":["Services and facilities"],"slug":"services-and-facilities","description":"What &gt; Services and facilities"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Planetary egg cells | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This image shows a region of a mouse ovary that has been cleared to render it transparent. We can see oocytes at various stages of maturity. Their dimensions range from 10 to 50 micrometres (thousandths of a millimetre).\" \/>\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\/science\/potw2124\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Planetary egg cells | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This image shows a region of a mouse ovary that has been cleared to render it transparent. We can see oocytes at various stages of maturity. Their dimensions range from 10 to 50 micrometres (thousandths of a millimetre).\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-06-29T07:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-19T12:41:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/1_oocytes_arturo_dangello_CRG_montse_coll_MIF_EMBL-1024x575.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"575\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Luca Tancredi Barone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Luca Tancredi Barone\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Luca Tancredi Barone\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/0576660bbd180e3f8f5bd19f3592fb2d\"},\"headline\":\"Planetary egg cells\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-29T07:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-19T12:41:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/\"},\"wordCount\":216,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/1_oocytes_arturo_dangello_CRG_montse_coll_MIF_EMBL.png\",\"keywords\":[\"mesoscopic imaging facility\",\"mouse ovary\",\"muvi spim\",\"oocyte\",\"spotlight\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Picture of the week\",\"Science\",\"Science &amp; Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/\",\"name\":\"Planetary egg cells | EMBL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/potw2124\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/1_oocytes_arturo_dangello_CRG_montse_coll_MIF_EMBL.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-29T07:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-19T12:41:31+00:00\",\"description\":\"This image shows a region of a mouse ovary that has been cleared to render it transparent. 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