Abstract

Correlative Light And Electron Microscopy In Structural Cell Biology

Wanda Kukulski, Group Leader, University of Cambridge

The content of eukaryotic cells is organized into membrane-bound compartments, cytoskeletal elements, granules and numerous other macromolecular assemblies. The particular arrangement and ultrastructure of these cellular components play crucial roles in facilitating many cellular processes. For example, specialized cytoskeletal assemblies are essential for cell motility, cell division, as well as many intracellular transport events. Correlative light and electron microscopy offers novel possibilities to study biological structures within their native cellular environment: Fluorescence microscopy provides information on the localization and dynamics of protein components, and this information is combined with high resolution, three-dimensional images of cellular ultrastructure obtained by electron microscopy. Our research focuses on understanding how cellular membranes and proteins interplay to generate specialized architectures that facilitate processes such as intracellular transport and communication, or the segregation of cellular content. In this talk, I will present our work on the formation of transport vesicles at the plasma membrane during endocytosis. By correlative microscopy, complemented with live imaging data, we could reveal the sequence of events during reshaping of the plasma membrane, and show how key protein components contribute to different stages of endocytosis.