Biology Image Library

Shining Light (Literally) On The Workings Of Cells Scientists would like to know more about how cells work. But seeing what's happening inside a cell isn't easy. It's dark in there, and even if you shine a light, many of the critical chemical reactions are invisible. Now, a team of researchers has found a way to reveal the invisible by attaching what amounts to a reflective tag to a chemical called RNA, a close relative of DNA. Molecules made of RNA have a variety of important jobs inside cells and frequently, doing those jobs requires the RNA to shuttle from one part of the cell to another. Seeing Inside Cells In the video below, researchers were studying how the addition of table sugar (sucrose) affected the growth of cells and the production of RNA. With the new ability to see RNA inside of cells by making it glow green, they learned that the addition of sucrose (the right frame in the video) dramatically increased the production of RNA – something that hadn't previously been known.

The Cell: An Image Library