2012 Small World In Motion Competition

Artboard 1

Honorable Mention

2012 Small World In Motion Competition

Beating heart of a living 2 day old Danio rerio (zebrafish)

Dr. Michael Weber

Affiliation
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Dresden, Saxony, Germany
Technique

Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy (SPIM)

Magnifaction
20

The heart muscle cells of this transgenic fish expresses GCaMP, a genetically encoded fluorescent calcium indicator. Visible is the wave of cardiac conduction, traveling over the heart from atrium (bottom) to ventricle (top left). The heart has a size of about 250 um and beats at a rate of about two times per second. It was imaged in 3D inside the living zebrafish using Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy (SPIM) (Huisken et al. 2004).