Severs, Nicholas; Hicks, Marian (2021). CIL:10919, Rattus, transitional epithelial cell. In Cell Image Library. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.6075/J03B5XZF

Freeze fracture image of the E-face of rat bladder lumenal membrane. The lumenal surface of these epithelial cells is composed of plaques separated by interplaque regions. Within the plaques are hexagonal arrays of subunits (about 12nm, with center-to-center spacing of 15.6nm) on the E-face of the membrane. The inset panel shows these subunits at higher magnification, prepared by deep-etching rather than fracturing after freezing. At higher magnification, each subunit within the plaque appear to be composed of a ring of six particles surrounding a channel. These plaques are distinguished from gap junctions (found on the P-face of membranes) by their location on their position instead on the E-face. These micrographs courtesy of Nicholas Severs and Marian Hicks, Figure 13 from Chapter 1 (The Cell Surface) of 'The Cell, 2nd Ed.' by Don W. Fawcett M.D. A PDF copy of the accompanying chapter is available on the ASCB's BioEDUCATE website.

• 2021

• Hicks, Marian
• Severs, Nicholas

With the freeze-fracture technique, tissue is rapidly frozen and cracked to shear along zones of weakness. Cleavage of membranes occurs along the hydrophobic interior of the lipid bilayer to reveal views of a "p-face" (the outwardly-facing inner half of the membrane) and an "e-face" (the inwardly-facing outer half of the membrane), and a metallic replica is made of the fractured surface. The intramembranous particles represent integral membrane proteins.

Preparation: freeze_fracture/freeze_etch
Relation to intact cell: isolated subcellular component
Item type: transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
Imaging mode: illumination by electrons; detection of electrons
Parameter imaged: electron density
Source of contrast: differences in deposition of metal shadow
Visualization methods: shadowing and plating
Data qualification: Processed

• Cell Image Library Group ID: 10550

• Rattus

• Extracellular region part
• Plasma membrane
• Transitional epithelial cell

• Plasma membrane organization

• data
• image

• No linguistic content; Not applicable

Samplenumber: 10919

Doi: https://doi.org/10.6075/J03B5XZF

Source data

• Source Record in the Cell Image Library: https://doi.org/10.7295/W9CIL10919

Other resource

• Fawcett, Don W. "The Cell." 2nd ed., W.B. Saunders, 1981, ISBN 0721635849. https://www.ascb.org/career-development/teaching/don-fawcetts-the-cell/

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2022-08-12