Day 23: Science is Cool - Transfection

This picture is not with the iPhone but with a camera attached to a microscope at a 40x zooming power.

What are you looking at? 

Recombinant Baculovirus infected Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9) insect cells. The smaller circles are newly infected cells while some in the background (faded circles) are cells which have already made the virus, lysed open and have released the virus into solution as well as some cell debris. The newly made virus can now infect other uninfected cells.

These are very pretty insect cells to which I added some foreign DNA. Normally the cells are small and round and bright. The cells take up the DNA and then make the baculovirus of my choice which I can then use to make the protein of my choice. Once the DNA is in the cells and the cells are making the virus, these cells become big, round and grainy in the middle.

In simple words, you want to make Chicken Tikka Masala (baculovirus expressing the protein of your interest). So you buy chicken and the spices (gene/dna of choice), then come to me (host: insect cells) and use my experience and  kitchen utensils (host cell machinery)  to make Chicken Tikka Masala (protein of your choice)! Does that make sense?

For the more scientific ones out there: you can see polyhedra formation- these are one of the best infected cells I have seen in five years of working with Baculovirus and Sf9s (@44 h post transfection). I am expressing an RNAi pathway protein.