Meteorites on Fire

When people don’t know exactly where the drugs they took go, confocal microscope helps to visualize it. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are a family of enzymes control critical cellular processes, including cell growth, cell cycle regulation, DNA repair, differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis. These enzymes have been identified as attractive targets for cancer therapy. My research examines how inhibitors work to inhibit HDAC and thus to re-design and optimize better inhibitors. This image represents Hela cells, one kind of cancer cell, be stained to show its nucleus and fluorescent tagged inhibitor. Though in vitro study shows the inhibitor does inhibit the HDAC, whether it works in situ still unknown. Here in this image, the Hela cells are treated with inhibitor labeled with red fluorescent tag - rhodamine tag, visualized by confocal microscope. Recent publications prove the class I HDAC proteins predominantly locate in nucleus which agree with observation, the red bright dots formed by aggregation of inhibitor-tag complex embedded in blue nuclei of cells. Using this image and several other images, we are assured the inhibitor can work in cell.