A human macrophage moves around red cells. Accelerated 125 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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The cell membrane is a fluid lipid bilayer which includes proteins acting as pumps, channels and receptors of hormones. From the DVD "Voyage inside the cell" by Christian Sardet, CNRS and Laurent Larsonneur and Andreas Koch, Digital Studio . DVD distributed by Sinauer.

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Human keratinocyte in motion. Accelerated 720 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Tumor cell from skeletal muscle origin (rhabdomyosarcome) illustrating membrane ruffling and the extension of lamellipodes and filopodes. Accelerated 150 times.
Cécile Gauthier-Rouvière
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Hepatocytes and epithelial cells in coculture. Accelerated 3000 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Primary culture of liver cells infected with a parasitic plasmodium. Accelerated 4500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Brain cells in culture (11 days). Rat embryo. Accelerated 3000 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Rat brain cells (mesencephalon) in culture (28 days). Accelerated 3000 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Primary culture of neuronal cells from rat mesencephalon (7 days). Accelerated 300 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Heart cell from in primary culture (6 days). Newborn rat. Real time.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Myoblast in culture. Human biopsy. Accelerated 360 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Calcium stored in endoplasmic reticulum tubes is released through channels by chemical messenger molecules generated at the cell membrane. Calcium released in the cytoplasm activated many enzymes and cell metabolism. From the DVD "Voyage inside the cell" by Christian Sardet, CNRS and Laurent Larsonneur and Andreas Koch, Digital Studio. DVD distributed by Sinauer.

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This image sequence shows a cell isolated from the ventricular muscle of the rat heart and loaded with a calcium indicator which gets brighter (coded here as a golden colour), when the intracellular calcium concentration rises. The cell shows spontaneous waves of calcium that drive contractions of the muscle. The calcium is released from an internal store that amplifies a small signal that originates from the electrical excitability at the plasma membrane. Such a process underlies the heartbeat in the intact heart. If you look carefully, you may also see a small localised flash of high calcium about a third of the way through the movie - this is spontaneous release of calcium called a calcium spark.
Michael Duchen
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Discovery of the fertilization calcium wave triggered by sperm in the egg of the Medaka fish by Lionel Jaffe and his collaborators. See Ridgway, Gilkey, Jaffe. (1977) PNAS, 74: 623-7

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Sperm entering the egg during fertilization in the ctenophore Beroe ovata. Accelerated 20 times.
See Carré, Sardet (1984) Dev Biol. 105:188-95.

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Microinjection offers the possibility to test the function of molecules in cells. Here an ascidian egg is microinjected with a mixture of proteins from the inside of sperm, one of which will cause the calcium stored in the endoplasmic reticulum to be released. The released calcium stimulates the egg to begin embryogenesis. Alex McDougall.With the use of fluorescent dyes that change their properties when calcium is present it is possible to measure the level of calcium in living cells. In this clip the level of calcium in the egg following microinjection is shown (images to the right) together with simultaneous bright field images of the egg in order to follow the shape change (the cortical contraction) that the calcium wave induces. We chose red and orange to represent high calcium levels high levels and blue calcium respectively. About 30 seconds following microinjection the level of calcium rises in the egg and a further 30 seconds after that the egg changes shape. The calcium rises first in a discrete region of the egg cortex and then spreads through the whole egg. These are termed calcium waves. In ascidians these waves are repeated about a dozen times over a period of about 30 minutes. Similar periodic waves are found during mammalian fertilization during a period of about 3 hours following fertilization. Alex McDougall.
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Once the repetitive calcium waves have been established in the egg, all the periodic calcium waves come from the same site in the egg. This site is termed the calcium wave pacemaker. You will likely note that the calcium wave pacemaker in ascidian eggs protrudes from the surface of the egg. As indicated previously, the increases in calcium are encoded white on a red background of low calcium. Alex McDougall,
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Fertilization causes the egg to become a zygote dividing rapidly (every 30-60 minutes) forming a hollow ball of 1000 cells : the blastula, 5-7 hours after fertilization. Sea Urchin Paracentrotus lividus, Christian Sardet.
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Repetitive meiotic Calcium Waves generated by a pacemaker situated in the vegetal contraction pole of an egg 5-20 minutes after fertilization. See Roegiers et al. (1999) Development.126: 3101-17. Ascidian Phallusia mamillata, Christian Sardet
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From fertilization to first cleavage. In ascidian eggs, fertilization triggers a contraction, the emission of 2 polar bodies, the migration and fusion of male and female pronuclei and large rotational movements before first cleavage which takes place 50 minutes after fertilization. Accelerated 300 times. Sequence recorded by Christian Sardet and Shinya Inoue.From Sardet,et al. (1989). Development 105, 237-249
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Brain cells in culture (32 days). Rat embryo. Accelerated 3200 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Brain cells in culture (7 days). Rat embryo. Accelerated 1500 times..
Marcel Pouchelet

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Primary culture of neuronal cells from rat mesencephalon (18 days). Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Primary culture of neuronal cells from rat mesencephalon (28 days). Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Primary culture of neuronal cells from rat mesencephalon (18 days). Axon extending throught the culture. Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Primary culture of neuronal cells from rat mesencephalon (7 days). Accelerated 3000
times. Marcel Pouchelet

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Stem cells from 3days mouse embryo. Accelerated 4500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Brain cells in culture (11 days). Rat embryo. Accelerated 3000 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Brain cells in culture (28 days). Rat embryo. Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Rabbit tracheal cells. Primary culture (4 days). Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Endocytic vesicle losing it's coat of Clathrin proteins(in blue) beneath the plasma membrane and microfilaments (in red). From the DVD "Inside the Cell" by Christian Sardet, CNRS and Laurent Larsonneur and Andreas Koch, Digital Studio. DVD distributed by Sinauer.

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GFP-Cellubrevin dynamics in the lamellipod of migrating cells. Time-lapse imaging of a lamellipod of a cell expressing GFP-Cellubrevin after monolayer injury (exposure time: 300 ms, acceleration 5x). Note the two vesicles that seem to dock and fuse with the plasma membrane marked by the moving arrow in B & C.
Thierry Galli
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Neurones from chick spinal ganglion (primary culture). Accelerated 240 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Cell line 6929 infected by mycobacter bacteria. Accelerated 240 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Hela cells infected by bacteria. Accelerated 240 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Secondary culture of human epidermal cells with moving mitochondria inside. Accelerated 25 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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In these spermatozoa, the mitochondria have been labelled with a vital dye that concentrates in energised mitochondria. The motility of the sperm is powered by a single mitochondrial structure that lies between the sperm head and the flagellum.
Michael Duchen
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Fertilization ( here in sea urchin) causes the egg to become a zygote dividing rapidly (every 30-60 minutes) forming a hollow ball of 1000 cells : the blastula, 5-7 hours after fertilization. Sequence recorded by
Christian Sardet and Manfred Kaage.

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Rat embryo brain cells primary culture. Accelerated 3200 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Rat embryo brain cells in culture (2 days). Accelerated 3000 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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In a neuron growing in culture, mitochondria have been labelled with a vital dye that accumulates in energised mitochondria. When glutamate is applied to the cell, the mitochondria become damaged and lose the dye. This is a consequence of a massive increase in calcium which causes mitochondrial injury. Once the mitochondria have lost their energised state, the cell will inevitably die. This process is thought to contribute substantial levels of cell death in the brain following a stroke.
Michael Duchen
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Communication between neurons operates by electrical signals but is accompanied by changes in intracellular calcium concentration. The sequence shows a population of neurons growing in culture and labelled with an indicator for intracellular calcium concentration. The cell at the lower left corner was stimulated, initiating waves of calcium that progress through the population from cell to cell.
Michael Duchen
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Cardiomyocyte. Rat primary culture. Real time.
Marcel Pouchelet
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This image shows cells isolated from rat ventricular muscle in which mitochondria have been stained with a vital dye that accumulates in energised mitochondria (colour coded in green/yellow/red). We then generate an oxidative stress in the cells and the mitochondria become progressively de-energised and eventually fail completely. When the cell runs out of ATP, it shortens to rigor and will die. Michael
Michael Duchen
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These two image sets show simultaneous measurements of intracellular calcium and mitochondrial energisation from a ventricular cardiac muscle cell. A progressive loss of mitochondrial energisation (seen as a wave of red signal moving across the cell) is associated with spontaneous changes in calcium (green) due to intracellular release events which follow as a consequence of oxidative stress.
Michael Duchen
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Hela cells in culture. Accelerated 240 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Keratinocyte. Primary culture from human skin biopsy. Accelerated 720 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Myoblast in culture. Secondary culture from human biopsy. Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Myoblast in culture. Culture from human biopsy. Accelerated 120 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Swimming tadpoles from the sea squirt (ascidian) Phallusia mammillata viewed 24 hours after fertilization through a binocular microscope. Real time.
Alexander Philips and Veronique Kleiner.
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Smaller embryos of sea urchins and larger embryos of ascidians (sea squirts) develop together. Dividing every 45 minutes. At the hollow ball (blastula) stage smaller sea urchin embryos escape from their fertilization envelope. The larger ascidian embryos grow a tail and become tadpoles. Sea Urchin Paracentrotus lividus, Ascidian Phallusia mamillata, Christian Sardet.
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Optical sections trough the muscle cells in the tail of the ascidian tadpole. Actin microfilaments in myofibrils are labelled red with Rhodamine Phalloidin. Confocal microscopy.
Alexander Philips

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Mouse myoblasts dividing in culture. Accelerated 27000 times.

Cécile Gauthier-Rouvière
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Fibroblasts from a rat embryo expressing the adhesive molecule Cadherin labelled with the Green Fluorescent Protein GFP. The cell is also injected with labelled Tubulin to reveal microtubules and the displacement of the Cadherin molecules along the microtubules.
Cécile Gauthier-Rouvière
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Left: Mouse myoblast showing the vesicular transport of the adhesive molecule Cadherin labelled with the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) fom the center of the cell to the periphery where the protein participates in the formation of intercellular junctions.
Right: Fibroblasts from a rat embryo showing the vesicular transport of N-Cadherin
from the golgi region to the cell periphery. Accelerated 150 times.
Cécile Gauthier-Rouvière
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Keratinocyte. Human skin biopsy . Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Keratinocyte. Human skin biopsy . Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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The egg elevates a fertilization envelope blocking other sperm from entering. The elevation of this protein barrier participates in the block to the entry of multiple sperm (polyspermy). Sea Urchin Paracentrotus lividus, Christian Sardet,
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Sperm penetrates the egg at fertilization. Membrane from a single sperm fuses with the egg and triggers the elevation of a fertilization envelope. The sperm nucleus with male chromosomes penetrates in the egg. Sea Urchin Paracentrotus lividus, Christian Sardet.

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From fertilization to first cleavage. In ascidian eggs, fertilization triggers a contraction, the emission of 2 polar bodies, the migration and fusion of male and female pronuclei and large rotational movements before first cleavage which takes place 50 minutes after fertilization .Accelerated 300 times. Sequence recorded by Christian Sardet and Shinya Inoue.From Sardet,et al. (1989). Development 105, 237-249

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Michel Bornens explains how microtubules lengthen and shorten around the centrosome.

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Myocyte. Human muscle biopsy. Accelerated 240 times.
Marcel Pouchelet.

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Dividing PTK cell in culture. Accelerated 120 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Cytokinesis failure. Cultured HeLa cells attempting to divide on a glass coverslip uniformly coated with Fibronectin. The two daughter cells remain connected by a thin bridge. Eventually, the daughter cells fuse back giving rise to a binucleated cell. Phase contrast microscopy. Accelerated 1500 times.
Manuel Thery
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Orientated cell division. HeLa cells dividing on a rectangular fibronectin micro-pattern. Phase contrast pictures are shown on the left and the projections of Z-acquisitions of Centrin-GFP protein labelling the centrosomes are shown on the right. Before entering mitosis the cell was in the shape of a rectangle. It then divided along the long cell axis. Accelerated 1500 times. See Thery et al, Nature Cell Biology, 2005, 7: 947-53.
Manuel Thery
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Randomly oriented cell division. HeLa cells dividing on a discoidal fibronectin micro-pattern. The projection of Z-acquisitions of Centrin-GFP protein labelling the centrosomes (green dots) are overlayed with the pictures acquired in phase contrast microscopy. In absence of external cues the orientation of cell division is randomly distributed. The arrows show that duplicating centrosomes split and move to diametrically opposed positions thus defining the division axis. In addition the spindle moves towards the cortex prior to the onset of anaphase. Thus the entire process of cell division appears intrinsically asymmetrical. Accelerated 1500 times. See Thery et al, Nature Cell Biology, 2005, 7: 947-53.
Manuel Thery
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Orientated positioning of daughter cells. This movie is the continuation of the movie entitled "orientated cell division". The orientation of cell division determines the future positions of the two daughter cells.
Manuel Thery.
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Hormone receptors pink in the nucleus bind to the chromatin made of DNA and proteins (blue strand) forming a long strand coiled around nucleosomes (yellow discs). From the DVD "Voyage inside the cell" by Christian Sardet, CNRS and Laurent Larsonneur and Andreas Koch, Digital Studio . DVD distributed by Sinauer.

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Human epithelial cell exposed to bacterial toxins. Accelerated 240 cells.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Adipocytes. Accelerated 25 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Cultured HeLa cells exiting mitosis. This 3-D projection (25 stacked images) of a cell over-expressing the fluorescent nucleolar protein Fibrillarin shows the recruitment of Fibrillarin into nucleoli during a 30 minutes period after passing through numerous foci called pre-nucleolar bodies. Accelerated 900 times. Danièle Hernandez-Verdun, See Savino et al. J. Cell Biol. 2001, 153:1097-1110,
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Dividing L 929 cells. Accelerated 750 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Myoblast in culture. Secondary culture from human biopsy. Accelerated 750 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Normal Rat Kidney cell (NRK) progressing from prophase to telophase. Chromosomes are marked by the stable expression of the core histone 2b tagged with Enhanced Green Fluorescent Protein (EGFP-H2b, in green). Transmitted light (grey) is used to follow the shape of the cell. The fluorescence labeling of chromatin and 4D imaging of the same live cell over the entire mitosis allows quantitations of the structural dynamics of chromosomes. Fluorescence channel is a maximum intensity projection of 18 confocal sections. Frame size is 30x30 µm, total real time elapsed is 50 min.
Felipe Mora-Bermúdez, Ellenberg Group, EMBL.

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Dividing epithelial cells in culture. Accelerated 1500 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Artificial chromosomes made of beads (2 microns) coated with chromatin nucleate microtubules that eventually self-organize into spindles. The experiment is carried out by adding chromatin beads to Xenopus egg extracts arrested in a "metaphase state". Microtubules are observed by visualizing the fluorescence emitted by Rhodamine labelled tubulin molecules added in small amounts to the extracts. This experiment demonstrates that the microtubules that form the spindle can be nucleated by chromosomes and not only by centrosomes as previously thought. Accelerated 25 times.
Experiment carried out by Rebecca Heald in Eric Karsenti's laboratory (1994-1996) Heald et al. 1996, Self-Organization of microtubules into bipolar spindles around artificial chromosomes in Xenopus egg extracts, Nature, 382, 420-425.
Eric Karsenti
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A centrosome has been added together with chromatin beads (2 microns) and Rhodamine labelled Tubulin to a frog egg extract. One can see how an aster of microtubules interacts with the beads at a distance. The chromatin generates a chemical signal that affects microtubule dynamics. As a result, the aster becomes asymmetric with more microtubules growing towards the beads and the whole aster is "attracted" by the chromatin beads. This effect participates to the organisation of the microtubules into a bipolar structure during spindle assembly. Accelerated 25 times. Experiments carried out by Rafael Carazo-Salas in Eric Karsenti's laboratory (2000-2003) Carazo-Salas, R.E. and Karsenti, E. 2003, Current Biology., 13, 1728-1733.
.Eric Karsenti
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Myocyte. Human muscle biopsy. Accelerated 240 times.
Marcel Pouchelet.

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L 929 cells. Accelerated 750 times.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Dividing cell.Accelerated.
Marcel Pouchelet

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Embryo of the nematode worm C. elegans dividing. It is filmed from pronuclear meeting in the one-cell stage until the early four-cell stage. The embryo is approximately 50 micrometer-long and the anterior pole is to the left. Time-lapse differential-interference contrast (DIC) microscopy sequence accelerated 50 times. Pierre Gonczy.
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The nematode worm C. elegans moving on a lawn of bacteria on a Petri dish. Adult animals are about 1 millimeter-long. Smaller larvae and embryos laid on the dish are also visible. Accelerated sequence.
Pierre Gonczy
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C. elegans embryo carrying a GFP-PIE-1 fusion protein imaged using dual time-lapse DIC and fluorescence microscopy from pronuclear migration in the one-cell stage until the two-cell stage.The embryo is approximately 50 micrometer-long and the anterior pole is to the left. The DIC and fluorescent GFP signal (pseudocolored in blue) are overlaid. Accelerated 100 times.
Pierre Gönczy
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One-cell stage C. elegans embryo during mitosis. Microtubules are labelled using a GFP-Tubulin fusion protein and imaged using a spinning disc confocal microscope. The embryo is approximately 50 micrometer-long and anterior is to the bottom-left. Events in the movie are accelerated approximately 20 times.
Pierre Gonczy.
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C. elegans embryo carrying a GFP-histone2B fusion protein to label chromosomes and imaged using dual time-lapse DIC and fluorescence microscopy from telophase in the one-cell stage until the two-cell stage. The DIC and GFP signal (pseudocolored in green) are overlaid. The embryo is approximately 50 micrometer-long and anterior is to the left. One imaged was captured every ten seconds through a 100X lens, and the movie is played back at 10 frames per seconds (overall, 100 times faster than actual events).
Pierre Gonczy
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C. elegans embryo subject to spindle severing using a laser microbeam (denoted by the green line). Green dots indicate the position of centrosomes. The embryo is approximately 50 micrometer-long and anterior is to the left.
Pierre Gonczy and Veronique Kleiner.
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C. elegans embryo carrying a GFP-TAC-1 protein to mark centrosomes and imaged using dual time-lapse DIC and fluorescence microscopy from telophase in the one-cell stage until the two-cell stage. The DIC and GFP signal (pseudocolored in green) are overlaid. The embryo is approximately 50 micrometer-long and anterior is to the left. One imaged was captured every ten seconds through a 100X lens, and the movie is played back at 10 frames per seconds (overall, 100 times faster than actual events).
Pierre Gonczy
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