University of Georgia

Latest

Latest

HEALTH & MEDICINE

GENETICS

Watch

Stay Connected

UGA Research Newsletter

Delivered to your inbox once every month.

Follow us on Social Media

Look

Dictyostelium is an amoeba that crawls on glass. The green stain prominently displays its cytoskeleton after cells were fixed and permeabilized, using an anti-actin antibody. The new anti-O-fucose antibody, created by Megna Tiwari, illustrates in red the concentration of O-fucose proteins within the nucleus, highlighted by the blue dye. One of the cells has 2 nuclei, and the white bar measures 5 microns.
Free living trophozoites, the disease-causing life stage of the amoeba Acanthamoeba castellanii that causes a painful and sometimes blinding eye infection, were allowed to attach to glass and then fixed and permeabilized for detecting fucose epitopes. The top panel probes with a lectin specific for any terminal fucose residue and the bottom panel probes with our antibody specific for O-fucose on proteins.
When we zoom in on several amoebae, we can highlight the nuclei, stained green with anti-epichromatin antibody. This emphasizes the enrichment of O-fucose proteins (in red) near the nuclear periphery. The blue DNA dye (DAPI) also images the nucleus.