Fluorescence Digital Image Gallery

Embryonic Rat Thoracic Aorta Medial Layer Myoblast Cells (A-10)

Vimentin is an intermediate filament protein (58 kiloDaltons) that is generally found in a variety of cells of mesenchymal origin and is developmentally regulated. Unlike most other proteins that comprise intermediate filaments, vimentin is expressed during the initial stages of cellular development, but is typically substituted with other tissue-specific intermediate filament proteins later in the developmental process. Vimentin has proven useful in the differential detection of undifferentiated neoplasms and is thought be involved in the communication and transport between the surface of a cell and its nucleus. An entire family of intermediate filaments, usually termed vimentin-like or, more simply, vimentin filaments, are named after the polypeptide. Vimentin-like intermediate filaments may also be composed of other proteins, however, such as desmin, peripherin, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), which are closely homologous to vimentin.

The proximity of intermediate filaments and the cytoskeletal filamentous actin network was visualized by treating the fixed and permeabilized culture of rat thoracic aorta cells presented above with mouse anti-vimentin primary antibodies followed by goat anti-mouse secondary antibodies (IgG) conjugated to Texas Red-X. F-actin was subsequently labeled with Alexa Fluor 350 conjugated to phalloidin, and the nuclei were counterstained with SYTOX Green. Images were recorded in grayscale with a QImaging Retiga Fast-EXi camera system coupled to an Olympus BX-51 microscope equipped with bandpass emission fluorescence filter optical blocks provided by Omega Optical. During the processing stage, individual image channels were pseudocolored with RGB values corresponding to each of the fluorophore emission spectral profiles.

View a smaller image of the rat thoracic aorta (A-10) cell.

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