Cellular & Molecular Imaging

Tara Expeditions are global scientific voyages that probe morphological and molecular diversity, evolution and ecology of marine plankton to explore how they are impacted by changes in the Earth's climate. The first expeditions collected samples of marine plankton containing viruses, bacteria, archaea, protists and planktonic metazoans living in the photic layer of the world's oceans. These expeditions, the first taking place between 2009 and 2013, include Tara Oceans: a global view, and Tara Oceans Polar Circle, both of which followed the same sampling protocol. This dataset includes 1074 pictures of 284 planktonic taxa (mainly microalgae and other Ciliate and Radiolarian protists) collected from the vicinity of the Marquesas Islands in the Southern Pacific Ocean during the Tara Oceans expedition. Multiple samples particularly of the size fractions 5-20 and 20 180 um from four sites and two depths were processed with different methods and studied in detail using scanning electron microscopy.

Light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images of snow algae field samples containing Rosetta gen. nov., including type material.

This dataset contains the original whole-slide microscopy images used to generate the microscopy figures included in the associated manuscript. Images are provided as original scanner output (.svs) files without cropping or modification. The folder structure follows the organization of the figures and panels in the manuscript.

Morphological modifications and shifts in organelle relationships are hallmarks of dormancy in eukaryotic cells. Communications between altered mitochondria and nuclei are associated with metabolic quiescence of cancer cells that can survive chemotherapy. In plants, changes in the pathways between nuclei, mitochondria, and chloroplasts are associated with cold stress and bud dormancy. Plasmodium falciparum parasites, the deadliest agent of malaria in humans, contain a chloroplast-like organelle (apicoplast) derived from an ancient photosynthetic symbiont. Antimalarial treatments can fail because a small fraction of the blood stage parasites enter dormancy and recrudesce after drug exposure. Altered mitochondrial-nuclear interactions in these persisters have been described for P. falciparum, but interactions of the apicoplast remained to be characterized. In the present study, we examined the apicoplasts of dormant persisters obtained after exposure to dihydroartemisinin (a first-line antimalarial drug) followed by sorbitol treatment, or after exposure to sorbitol treatment alone. As previously observed, the mitochondrion of persisters was consistently enlarged and in close association with the nucleus. In contrast, the apicoplast varied from compact and oblate, like those of active ring stage parasites, to enlarged and irregularly shaped. Enlarged apicoplasts became more prevalent later in dormancy, but regular size apicoplasts subsequently predominated when actively replicating parasites recrudesced. All three organelles, nucleus, mitochondrion, and apicoplast, became closer during dormancy. Understanding their relationships in erythrocytic-stage persisters may lead to new strategies to prevent recrudescences and protect the future of malaria chemotherapy.

Bacteria occupy heterogeneous environments, attaching and growing within pores in materials, living hosts, and matrices like soil. Systems that permit high-resolution visualization of dynamic bacterial processes within the physical confines of a realistic and tractable porous media environment are rare. Here we use microfluidics to replicate the grain shape and packing density of natural sands in a 2D platform to study the flow-induced spatial evolution of bacterial biofilms underground. We introduce a wildtype strain (Pantoea sp. YR343, n=3) or an EPS-defective strain (Pantoea sp. YR343 ΔUDP, n=3) to the porous media platform and then simulate a rainfall event using gravity-driven flow of bacterial growth media.

This dataset comprises raw, 16-bit monochrome microscopy images of human red blood cells infected with malaria at various degrees of parasitemia. The microscope used to caputure the images is a Leica DMi8 inverted brightfield microscope, using a 40x/1.3 oil immersion apochromatic objective. The cells are imaged at either one wavelength (at 405 nm) or three simultaneous wavelengths (365 nm, 405 nm, and broadband lamp). Each condition contains many fields of view for a single time point. The directory structure is organized into four date-stamped folders. Three folders contain experiments used for training and validation data collection, including two folders with images of infected cells ('SCP-2019-10-24 Malaria' and 'SCP-2019-11-12 Malaria'), and one folder containing a healthy control dataset ('SCP-2020-01-08 Healthy RBC conditions'). 'SCP-2020-06-20 Titration' is an experiment whereby a high parasitemia malaria culture was diluted serially into healthy red blood cells. Dilution points are contained within subfolders labelled by the dilution point.

Lepidoptera, i.e. butterflies and moths, are vital components of the global ecosystem. Project Psyche is a scientific research project established to sequence the genomes of all butterflies and moths of Europe; helping to conserve, protect and drive innovation.

Lepidoptera, i.e. butterflies and moths, are vital components of the global ecosystem. Project Psyche is a scientific research project established to sequence the genomes of all butterflies and moths of Europe; helping to conserve, protect and drive innovation.

Lepidoptera, i.e. butterflies and moths, are vital components of the global ecosystem. Project Psyche is a scientific research project established to sequence the genomes of all butterflies and moths of Europe; helping to conserve, protect and drive innovation.

Acanthamoeba castellanii is a protozoan pathogen that causes infectious blindness and fatal brain infections in humans, with toxic and largely ineffective therapies. Although the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) is a validated drug target in many protozoan parasites, the mitochondrial proteome of Acanthamoeba has not previously been mapped comprehensively or accurately. We integrated mitochondrial immunoprecipitation, density-gradient purification, mass spectrometry, and protein correlation profiling to define a high-confidence Acanthamoeba mitoproteome. Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy of HA-tagged proteins was also used to test and expand our mass spectrometry-based mitochondrial protein inventory for Acanthamoeba. Fluorescence microscopy images from this sub-cellular protein localization study are reported here.