Video Killed the Biochemistry Star
First rule of science: collecting microscopy data is much more entertaining than turning it into publication—quality files. So we often…don’t. We hope that our cell phone videos are just as illuminating? See the embedded videos or visit our highly influenced and socially tiktaked Youtubing account:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfIO5cab4BzeNBvs-2knIZQ/videos
Page 1 (Linked, Cytoplasmic RNA granules)
Page 2 (Below, Nuclear RNA bodies)
Page 3 (Linked, Multinucleated syncytia)
Page 4 (Linked, Miscellaneous live cell time lapses)
Co-expression of speckle proteins with cool multi-phase demixing. We would tell you more, but we need to publish this and related findings at some point. :)
Co-expression of optogenetic speckle protein (red) and unrelated speckle protein (green) with neat multi-phase demixing. Funky nucleoli too!
Co-expression of optogenetic speckle protein (red, not shown), which leads to cool multi-phase demixing of a different speckle protein (green).
But what does this mean for tau?
Human HEK293 cells with tau aggregates (green; see Sanders et al., Neuron, 2014) and optogenetic speckle protein (red).
Over-expressed speckle protein forms large, hollow droplets in the nucleus. This re-entrant behavior is common with proteins of similar amino acid composition (i.e. basic-acidic dipeptides)