This page contains links to movies and resources relevant to the course Developmental Cell Biology (Biology 497A).

SYLLABUS AS PDF

Note: links/movies may change during course as new literature appears or I find new sites.


Introductory Lectures

Annotated movie of nematode cleavage at University of Wisconsin 4D microscopy page

A morphed series of scanning electron micrographs of normal and mutant fly gastrulation at Flybase

Dynamic microtubules dual fluorsecent/DIC imaging from the Salmon Lab at UNC Chapel Hill

Dynamic Instability, Treadmilling and Fluorescent speckle microscopy of microtubules also from the Borisy lab at The Univeristy of Wisconsin

Kinesin motility assay from Endow Lab at Duke University on the Kinesin home page

Animation of kinesin stepping along a microtubule #1 and #2 at the Molecular Motors Group home page


For the microscopy lecture there is a pretty good tutorial site with lots of JAVA applets that allow you to investigate the various basic principles in microscopy courtesy of Olympus and Florida State University. I would not recommend doing this by modem unless you have the fastest available. You can also download a nice review on basic wide field microscopy techniques including those discussed in class at the same site.

Here is the same cell imaged using the three different types of microscopy we discussed in class, simple Kohler (bright field) illumination, phase contrast and Nomarski/DIC. (note each is 700-800k so have patience if you are on a modem). Each represents about 15-18 different focal planes put together in a quicktime movie so that you can see the characteristic differences as you focus up and down (starting at the surface). Notice in particular the different appearance of the bacteria on the surface and the organelles in the phase and DIC images - see how the bacteria are uniformly dark in the phase image as this picks out regions of differing refractive index while they are only imaged at their boundaries in the DIC as this type of imaging responds to gradients in refractive index. Notice also that the DIC provides significant releif from out of focus contributions and has the characteristic '3D' appearance with objects being bright on one side and dark on the other.


Generation of cellular asymmetry

The movies of yeast budding and the dynamics of the yeast cytoskeleton came from two labs - those of Ted Salmon at UNC Chapel Hill, and John Cooper at Washington University in St. Louis. The beautiful DIC movie of axial budding came from the Salmon lab as did the dual DIC/fluoresecent imaging of microtubule dynamics during budding. The other four movies are from the Cooper lab and depict (i) a 3D rendering of the actin cytoskeleton in a fixed yeast cell (ii) the dynamic movement of actin patches (iii) the dynamics of of myosin II accumulation in the bud.

Some sources for these lectures that may assist in your essay writing can be found in this PDF file.


Asymmetric cell division

Some short reviews and primary literature on spindle orientation in fly neuroblasts, nematode and on Ash1 mRNA transport can be found in this PDF file.

The movies showing the spindle asymmetry and rotation in fly neuroblasts are posted at Nature Cell Biology. The movie showing the spindle orientations in early nematode development can be found at the 4D Micrsocopy site at the Unversity of Wisconsin.


Cell shape change

Some short reviews and primary literature on root hair growth, apical contraction and axon pathfinding can be found in this PDF file
Cell crawling

Some short reviews and primary literature on cell crawling can be found in this PDF file (not posted yet).

There were a lot of movies:

The movies showing actin distribution during ruffling and tension induced wrinkling came from The Center for Light Microcscope Imaging and Biotechnology at Carnegie Mellon University.

The movie showing interphase actin dynamics by fluorescent speckle microscopy came from the Salmon Lab at UNC Chapel Hill

The movies that showed the generation and analysis of motility cytoplasts came from the the Borisy lab at The Univeristy of Wisconsin. The ones I specifically showed can be found on the lab's movie page. They showed:

  1. modes of cell crawling,
  2. latrunculin treatment of migrating keratocytes,
  3. staurosporine generation of lamellipodial fragments,
  4. mechanical induction of motility in lamelipodial fragments,
  5. distribution of myosin II during the induction of motility
  6. distribution of myosin II in gliding fragment'
  7. the actin network in the keratocyte lameillipodium
  8. the distribution of ADF/cofillin in the keratocyte lamelipodium

.............there are many others on this site, check 'em out.

The movie of Dictyostelium eating bacteria and of Listeria rocketing in vivo came from the Heuser Lab at Washington Unversity in St. Louis.

The movies which showed reconstitution of rocketing in cell extracts (of beads) came from the Mitchison Lab at Harvard.

The movie of GFP-Arp3 at the leading edge of the lamellipodium came from the Cooper lab at Washington Unversity in St.Louis.


Organizing eggs

A PDF file containing the lecture sources for 'Organizing eggs' can be found here.


Blood

A PDF file containing the lecture sources for 'Blood' can be found here.


Muscle

A PDF file containing the lecture sources for 'Muscle' can be found here.


Unconventional Myosins/Hearing

A PDF file containing the lecture sources for 'Unconventional myosins/hearing' can be found here.


Post Genomic Cell Biology

A PDF file containing the lecture sources for 'Post Genomic Cell Biology' can be found here (not posted yet).