The Biophysical Society's Annual Art of Science Image Contest took place again this year, during the 64th Annual Meeting in San Diego. The image that won third place was submitted by Ziliang Zhao, a postdoc in Rumiana Dimova’s lab at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany. Zhao took some time to provide information about the image and the science it represents.
How did you compose this image?
Phoenix Reborn is an assembly of images on different biomembrane morphologies observed by confocal microscopy. These structures include lipid vesicles, nanotubes, double membrane sheets, and lipid aggregates. They are detected in the simplified system of a minimal cell represented by giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) encapsulating aqueous two-phase system (ATPS). ATPS is a solution of dextran and PEG at concentrations mimicking the crowded cellular environment. Each of these remarkable membrane structures represents the fascinating morphology a membrane can adopt during cellular activities. Our idea was to create an artistic image that attracts people’s attention into the biomembrane morphological realm. My wife Yubing Guo was the actual brain behind this image, she proposed and drafted the fiery soaring phoenix and I composed the final version using images from my little microscopy art gallery.
What do you love about this image? Or, what about this image made you submit it for the contest?
The soaring phoenix is a symbolic totem to me. It stands for all the researchers who are suffering from unsmooth experiments but never give up, yet are still brave enough to face the challenges head on and tackle them, eventually unveiling the story behind their research with a stunning transformation. I submitted it with the hope that many more colleagues in our biophysical community might view it and possibly be inspired by the beauty and surprises of the transformations a membrane can undergo.
What do you want viewers to think when they view this image?
As I am writing this blog, the world is going through an extremely difficult time battling against the coronavirus (COVID-19). Global health, economy and our daily lives are immensely affected and more severe situations might still come. Phoenix is a divine animal in ancient Chinese history, it stands for peace and prosperity. I hope at this special time it can bring us luck and hope, just like Chinese people have succeeded in the fight against the virus at enormous sacrifices, the whole world will prevail this battle hand in hand eventually. I would also like to dedicate this image to all the brave heroes fighting against the virus and saving lives at the front line.
How does this image reflect your scientific research?
The particular membrane structures in the image were obtained by osmotically deflating the ATPS GUVs. Upon the external stimulus, the excess membrane areas were stored as nanotubes protruding into the vesicle interior (the phoenix belly), and some of these nanotubes can restructure into double membrane sheets (the phoenix neck) at a later stage which are reminiscent of endoplasmic reticulum cisternae. The transformation process depends on the interplay between the interfacial tension, the membrane wettability by the aqueous phases, and the spontaneous curvature of the membrane. The nanotube formation results from theasymmetric adsorption of PEGon the two leaflets as investigated in our previous research (DOI:10.1021/acsnano.5b05377). We also found that one could manipulate the morphology of this minimal cell model and have outward nanotubes (the GUV behind the phoenix’s head) by changing the deflation medium. My research focus is to determine the size and shape of these nanotubes using super resolution microscopy (STED), and unveil and understand the tube-to-sheet transformation process. I hope my findings here can serve to elucidate the origin of the similar highly curved membrane structures in the cell.
Can you provide real-world examples or applications of your research?
The tube-to-sheet transformation process in a GUV described above and the shape coexistence in the mimetic cell model is an extension of our work described in a previous BPS blog. The double membrane sheets we observe represent an excellent mimic of the cisternae system in the endoplasmic reticulum in a cell, yet the origin of these highly curved membrane structures is still beyond understanding. Studying their generation and stabilization is of vital importance to scientists in all biophysics related fields for pushing our understanding on the human body to the limit and elucidating the origin of life. Meanwhile, studying the shape transformation of model cell membranes upon external stimulus can provide pivotal information to fight the attack of viruses on the cell membrane and cut off the lytic cycle from the beginning. Although the road ahead is still long, it will eventually help the humankind to win the battle against the pandemic like the one we are facing now.
Do you have a website where our readers can view your recent research?
More work on the ATPS GUVs and our research can be found via these links, https://www.dimova.de/, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rumiana_Dimova, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ziliang_Zhao3, and https://de.linkedin.com/in/ziliang-zhao-999a68b0.
I would like to acknowledge my supervisor Dr Rumiana Dimova for her suggestions on the image, and corrections of the wording in the description. The consortium MaxSynBio (jointly funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Max Planck Society) and the head of our department, Prof. Reinhard Lipowsky, are also acknowledged for the funding and support. I am also grateful to BPS for hosting the art of science image contest which provides us a platform to showcase the beauty of our work.