HeLa cells undergoing metaphase

<b>Lay summary and brief biological or clinical significance</b><div>A human cancer cell is shown in the act of dividing. Understanding the process of cancer cell division and the molecular pathways involved allows us to identify new strategies for the selective killing of rapidly dividing cancer cells.<br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Technical summary</b><br></div><div>Human HeLa cervical carcinoma cells were fixed in ice-cold methanol and stained with antibodies against α-tubulin to detect microtubules (red) and CenpA to detect kinetochores (green). DNA was stained with Hoechst 33258 (blue) to identify the condensed chromosomes.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Imaging Details<br></div><div><table> <tr> <td> <p>Hardware <br> <br> </p> </td> <td> <p>Leica Confocal TCS SP5</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p>Image Capture Software</p> </td> <td> <p>Leica Software</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p>Laser(s) used<br> (if applicable)</p> </td> <td> <p>50 mW diode 405 nm; 100 mW Argon laser 488; 10 mW DPSS 561 nm</p> <p> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p>Fluorophores used <br> (if applicable)</p> </td> <td> <p>Primary: α-tubulin (Mouse); CenpA (Rabbit)</p> <p>Secondary: Alexa fluor goat anti-rabbit 594; Alexa fluor goat anti-mouse 488, Hoechst 33258</p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p>Objective</p> </td> <td> <p>X63 Plan Apo</p> </td> </tr> </table></div>