Nikon Releases the Results of its Annual Small World Photomicrography Competition

Microscope photos: See a beautiful blood-brain barrier

The below photo of a blood-brain barrier in a live zebra-fish embryo nabbed first.

The blood-brain barrier plays a critical role in neurological function and disease, and Drs. Jennifer L. Peters and Michael R. Taylor of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee developed a transgenic zebra fish to visualize the development of this structure in a live specimen.

"We used fluorescent proteins to look at brain endothelial cells and watched the blood-brain barrier develop in real-time," Peters and Taylor said. "We took a three-dimensional snapshot under a confocal microscope. Then, we stacked the images and compressed them into one -- pseudo-coloring them in rainbow to illustrate depth."

This photo of a blood-brain barrier in a live zebra-fish embryo took first place in this year's Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

(Credit: Dr. Jennifer L. Peters and Dr. Michael R. Taylor)