Department of Dermatology: Faculty, URMC

Laboratory of Glynis Scott, M.D.

Digital movies of keratinocyte-melanocyte co-cultures for observation of melanosome transfer Below are QuickTime movies of co-cultures of melanocytes and keratinocytes viewed on an Nikon Eclipse Microscope 800 under differential interference contrast (DIC) optics at 100x objective. The chamber was perfused with KGM maintained at a constant temperature of 37 C by an inline heater (Warner Instruments) using gravity flow. Sequential images were obtained at 8s intervals using the green filter of a Spot digital camera (Diagnostic Instruments, Sterling Heights, MI). The resulting 8bit/pixel megapixel (1315x1033) images yielded a resolution of 10 pixels/micron when combined with the 100x microscope objective.

These movies correspond to figures in the manuscript "Filopodia are conduits for melanosome transfer to keratinocytes" by Glynis Scott, Sonya Leopardi, Scatey Printup, and Brian C. Madden (in press, J Cell Science).

Figure 1a: Movies of a melanocyte dendrite with prominent filopodia. Movie here
Figure 1b: Movies of a melanocyte dendrite in which a filopodia makes contact with a keratinocyte membrane. A melanosome can be seen moving along the filopodia towards the keratinocyte. Movie here
Figure 1c: Movies of a melanocyte dendrite in which a filopodia makes multiple contacts with a keratinocyte membrane. Melanosomes can be seen moving along the filopodia towards the keratinocyte. Movie here
Figure 1d: Five minutes after treatment of cells with nocodazole, melanosomes have redistributed towards the melanocyte cell body, leaving a dendrite, which appears empty. Filopodia were not affected by nocodazole treatment. Movie here