Imaging of oxygen gradients in giant umbrella cells: an ex vivo PLIM study

Members of the lab Dr. A. Zhdanov, I. Okkelman and Prof. D. Papkovsky in collaboration with Prof. J. Cryan's lab from APC Microbiome Institute have published the research article devoted to study of intracellular oxygen (O2) gradients. While the existence of dynamic O2 gradients is a controversial topic, Zhdanov et al found that giant umbrella cells from mouse bladder epithelium display profound O2 gradients in ex vivo culture. Using confocal phosphorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (PLIM) and recently developed O2-sensitive Pt-Glc probe, they observed significant (up to 85 uM) lateral O2 gradients. Such gradients are presumably produced by mitochondrial respiration, as the authors demonstrated.
The work was published in American Journal of Physiology - Cell Physiology. The full text can be found here.

The image from the article was chosen as the "Image of the week" in the social media of the AJP Cell Physiology, on 14th of August.