The Broad's festive science images, part 4: Triangular cells

Here at the BroadMinded Blog, we polled the Broad community for their best holiday-themed scientific imagery — and we got some wonderful responses. We'll be taking a break until the new year, but in the meantime, enjoy these gorgeous biological images sure to keep you in the holiday spirit. Check...

Here at the BroadMinded Blog, we polled the Broad community for their best holiday-themed scientific imagery — and we got some wonderful responses. We'll be taking a break until the new year, but in the meantime, enjoy these gorgeous biological images sure to keep you in the holiday spirit. Check back each day for a new entry. See you in 2011!

This image is a stain of a micropatterned cell, contributed by Mark Bray, a computational biologist in the Broad's Imaging Platform. A cardiac myocyte (heart cell) is plated onto an extracellular matrix island which restricts its growth to the shape of the island (in this case, a triangle). The cell grows to fit the shape, and the cells are stained with three colors: cell nuclei are blue, actin proteins are green, and muscle proteins are red. Mark tiled the image in Photoshop to create this lovely pattern, reminiscent of holiday wrapping paper or stained glass.

Previous entries:
Part 1: Dendritic networks
Part 2: Neuronal culture from stem cells
Part 3: Chemical screening data