{"id":21201,"date":"2010-09-20T08:21:28","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T12:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=21201"},"modified":"2011-06-28T16:43:02","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T20:43:02","slug":"making-movies-within-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/09\/making-movies-within-cells\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Movies Within Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Barbara<\/a>
Barbara Mellone, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology, in her lab. Photo by Jessica Tommaselli<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the second floor of Beach Hall in her newly renovated biology lab, Barbara Mellone<\/a> has a complex set of high-tech cameras. She uses these cameras to snap high-resolution photos \u2013 and even make videos \u2013 of her research organisms, which can often be elusive. But these cameras aren\u2019t those large digital ones with manual focus and interchangeable lenses that many photographers use.<\/p>\n

In fact, they\u2019re small enough to fit into the lens of a microscope.<\/p>\n

Mellone, an assistant professor of molecular and cell biology<\/a> in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, studies the process of cell division, in which cells split in two to create new, \u201cdaughter\u201d cells. Her goal is to identify the molecular events that lead to successful cell duplication, and these cameras let her and her students watch the action as it happens.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us a fantastic way to monitor chromosome segregation,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s much easier to see when something\u2019s going wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Living cells are constantly dividing, as old cells die and new ones take their place. When new cells are needed, the cells replicate their DNA within chromosomes, and using a central region called a centromere, they split the genetic material equally into two new cells.<\/p>\n

At least, that\u2019s what\u2019s supposed to happen.<\/p>\n

Mellone is interested in what happens when a dividing cell makes a mistake. If the daughter cells are accidentally given too many or too few chromosomes \u2013 a condition scientists call aneuploidy \u2013 it can lead to dysfunction and cell death. And if those cells happen to be reproductive cells like those that make up sperm and eggs, aneuploidy can lead to birth defects, conditions such as Down syndrome, and even death of the developing embryo. Aneuploidy is also common in tumors and cancer cells, says Mellone.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need a robust centromere connection to have good replication,\u201d she says. \u201cIn tissue that divides endlessly, like cancer cells, there\u2019s more of a chance that something will go wrong. The cells need a fine balance of what\u2019s necessary to propagate.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is where her specialized cameras come in. Using a technique that labels proteins to express different fluorescent colors, Mellone and her students take time-lapse photography of cells dividing under the microscope. The result is a cell division video \u2013 a colorful, revealing look at just how each cell part functions over time.<\/p>\n

Mellone was recently awarded a four-year, $730,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study how centromeres assemble themselves in the fruit fly Drosophila<\/em>. She will use the funds to study the role of CENP-A, an essential protein required for centromeres to exist, which is found in all organisms with cell membranes, including humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cCENP-A is a special protein that marks DNA specifically at the centromere,\u201d says Mellone. \u201cLike all centromeric proteins, it is essential for survival. If you don\u2019t have CENP-A, you\u2019re dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mellone uses her time-lapse photography not only in her research, but also in the classroom and to teach students in her lab. Teaching students about the cell cycle from a textbook can be difficult and confusing, she says, but viewing movies of the cycle can make it much clearer. She recalls showing her videos in a graduate class she taught in her first year at UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students were just blown away,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you just talk about the different stages, it\u2019s very abstract. It makes so much more sense when you can visualize the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mellone has used her videos in an interdisciplinary science course for female freshmen and sophomores that she helped develop in collaboration with UConn\u2019s Women in Math, Science, and Engineering (WiMSE) Learning Community<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This summer, she also mentored three local high school students in her laboratory through UConn\u2019s Mentor Connection<\/a> program. Hailing from Putnam High School, Convent of the Sacred Heart, and Crosby High School, the students were actively engaged in the molecular research in Mellone\u2019s laboratory, including learning how to make these videos and interpret their results.<\/p>\n

Although Mellone studies theses processes in fruit flies, the concepts can be extended to inform what we know about cell division in all multicellular organisms. She hopes her studies will help scientists understand how these highly specialized processes have evolved differently in different species.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s becoming more and more obvious that there\u2019s so much more we need to learn about these processes,\u201d she says. \u201cThese studies in Drosophila<\/em> tell us about the mechanisms behind the events, and how they\u2019ve evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

[yframe url=’http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0BHQhOdso0o’]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biologist Barbara Mellone is studying what happens when a dividing cell makes a mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,70],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[63],"class_list":["post-21201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 14:27:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21201"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21409,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21201\/revisions\/21409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21201"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=21201"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=21201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}