Immune cell researcher Ying Hu, PhD, a member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center in its Cancer Biology Research Program, describes his microscopic subjects as ocean liners cruising in a pitch-black sea.
“Imagine a ship with no lights on. You don’t know how big the boat is or what its outline looks like. Similarly, if you don’t know an immune cell’s shape and structure, it’s difficult to visualize because you don’t know what to look for,” said Hu, Associate Professor of Chemistry in the UIC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
In Hu’s analogy, the ship’s lights are comparable to the proteins in a cell’s outermost layer: the plasma membrane.
In a Nature Communications study, Hu and colleagues, including other Cancer Center members, introduced a technique to create a visual of a mammalian immune cell’s plasma membrane structure in less than five minutes. By chemically staining proteins on the cell’s plasma membrane, researchers can map the cell’s structure and better understand how it communicates and fights threats like cancer.
Read more about the study at UIC Today.
Pictured: Cancer Center member Ying Hu, PhD
