Science Art Gallery

3D Science Art

These images were captured by fluorescent labelling and 3D confocal microscopy, which cuts out unfocused light to give a crisp view.

As well as revealing some wonderful and bizarre microscopic landscapes, they have led to exciting discoveries.

They’ve helped up to understand the 3D organisation of stem cells, breast cancer, the developing mammary gland and the immune system.

See my Science Art, Videos and cyan/red 3D images below.

If you enjoyed these images, please support me on Ko-fi

Follow @calebadawson

Science Art

: The muscle-like cells that wrap around breast alveoli. These contract when they receive oxytocin from the brain, which is released when a baby suckles.

: Sakura – Breast tissue regressed after lactation

: Fibroblast – This is one of the many fibroblasts that stretch throughout breast tissue. They make connective tissue that binds cells together and gives our organs their stiffness.

: Breast fat cells – The breast alveoli and ducts that make and transport milk are embedded in fat tissue. Fat tissue is made up of the large adipose cells seen here, which are enwrapped by blood vessels.

: Breast tissue in lactation – Muscle cells (yellow) contract to push out milk while immune cells (blue) survey for damage. Red marks cell skeletons, showing blood vessels that wrap around the breast tissue.

: Ductal macrophages during weaning – We discovered a new immune cell in the breast that we called ductal macrophages, or ‘DMs’. DMs (yellow) patrol the milk-producing cells (grey) that are dying because they are no longer needed. DMs eat them as they die to help the breast return to normal and stay healthy. The orange cell skeletons evoke regenerating flames.

: Immune cells (blue) patrolling breast alveoli during lactation. Staining the myoepithelial cells and the immune cells with different fluorescent dyes revealed their close interaction. Making the breast tissue transparent allows the microscope to see the cells clearly, creating these crisp images. We make breast tissue transparent with a mixture of sugars and glycerol called FUnGI.

: Lactation – Myoepithelial cells are muscle-like and normally lie along mammary ducts. In lactation, they become star-shaped and wrap around milk-producing alveoli to squeeze the milk out.

: Macrophages: Guardians of the Intestinal Villi – Macrophages (yellow) lie just inside the intestine surface (pink) where they monitor for infection and regulate inflammation.

: Skin rainbow – Multi-coloured skin cells. Keratinocytes were randomly labelled with different coloured fluorescent proteins using an artificial ‘confetti gene. F-actin, a protein that associates with sites of cell attachment, is shown in cyan.

: Immune landscape – Langerhans cells (yellow) are skin immune cells that keep watch just below keratinocytes (blue) that make up the skin surface. The pink is DNA within cell nuclei

: Ductal tree – Mammary gland ducts in the early stages of cancer development, where small buds form along the ducts.

: Hair follicles (dense blue structures) and tiny pilus muscles (orange) that pull on the follicles to give you goosebumps.

: Splatter painted lung – Multi-coloured breast cancer metastases

: Let hair be light – Fluorescent hairs and skin cells

: Two different types macrophages eat dying cells and airborne debris in the lung

: Nemophora topazias – A moth in microscopic detail

: A colourful quilt – Multi-coloured skin cells

: Patchwork of clones – A computer glitch led to this jumbled image of a breast tumour that formed from multi-coloured cells.

Incubating...