Peter Hemmerich

The eukaryotic nucleus is responsible for the storage, propagation, maintenance and expression of the genetic material it contains. Therefore, a highly organized machinery is required for these processes to take place in an extremely condensed nuclear environment with protein concentrations ranging between 50 to 400 µg/µl.

The figure shows confocal microscopy images of HEp-2 cells stained with specific antibodies decorating the indicated nuclear substructures (magenta). Differential interference contrast (DIC) images (grey) were merged with the respective immunofluorescence staining. DIC reveals the cytoplasm (cy), nucleoplasm (nu), and nucleoli (no) in HEp-2 cells (HEp-2). Bar, 5 µm.