Plant genes respond to many cues in the environment—light, nitrogen availability, and other factors—to allow the plant to adjust to changing conditions. How do those genes work together to keep the plant healthy? Diagrams like this one are used to analyze and describe the relationships of plant genes to one another and to the environment. They can lead to the identification of new ways to develop crops that will continue to thrive as the climate changes.

Viruses are artful dodgers, expressing proteins that evade the body’s immune response. Researchers can study the proteins that allow viruses to sneak in by using special labeling techniques to observe viral gene activity in infected cells. The colors seen in this image come from labeling of cells infected with vaccinia virus, and will help clarify how viral genes allow poxviruses to cause infections.

The activity of our genes is affected by mental illnesses such as major depressive disorder. The analysis that produced this image groups genes together based on the similarity of their expression patterns across many individuals, producing a tree-like shape. Understanding the patterns of gene activity that emerge during mental illness not only aids researchers in the attempt to understand mental disorders, but also may someday allow us to identify and reduce risk of future illnesses.

What if leaves are too greedy? When leaves grow on top of each other in a crop canopy, the leaves at the top prevent the leaves at the bottom from receiving light. This "shading effect" could be minimized if leaves at the top had less chlorophyll and allowed more light to reach deep into the canopy. Studying the relationship between chlorophyll content and light absorption with plots like the ones seen here could lead to the development of more productive crop plants.

Funded by the Illini 4000 and the Mayo Clinic – University of Illinois Alliance for Technology-Based Healthcare
The vivid green and blue colors seen in this image mark the structures and nuclei of the cells that cause glioblastoma multiforme, a common and lethal form of brain cancer. Researchers have invented a biomaterial, a special gel, which mimics the conditions of the brain and allows them to more easily study how these cancer cells multiply and spread. This new technology will help identify advanced therapies that improve patient survival.

Many of the same genes that guide development of organs and limbs in people play very similar roles in the development of other animals, including fish. The research that produced this image compares the development of zebrafish with normal or mutant versions of a gene called Edaradd that contributes to the successful growth of the skeleton. Examining the resulting differences in skeletal growth leads to important insights into developmental disorders and the evolution of animal forms.

This image is a top view of an extremely thin slice of a stickleback fish brain, taken from an experiment studying the best ways to preserve brain tissue for later investigations of brain anatomy and gene activity. The brains of stickleback fish are similar in many ways to those of humans, and their rich evolutionary history and repertoire of social behaviors make them an important model for unlocking the secrets of how genes and the brain control behavior.

Blood vessels supply the nutrients necessary for organ and tissue function; blood vessel growth is also an important part of tumor formation. This image displays an experimental model for studying how blood vessels form. In this experiment, researchers found that the number of starting cells and nutrients provided to them are critical to forming vessel-like structures in the laboratory. This model can be used in the future to test drugs that block the blood vessel growth that allows tumors to grow.

Travertine is a type of limestone formed by calcium carbonate precipitated from hot springs. Surprisingly, communities of microbes play a key role in this process by catalyzing mineralization. The points of light in this image show the locations of fragments of DNA within ancient travertine. Understanding how microbes contribute to travertine formation on Earth inform the search for life on other planets, including Mars.

The distinct blue lines in this image are the walls of cells that make up vascular bundles, the tubes that carry water, sugar and nutrients between the roots and the leaves of plants. By counting the number of vascular bundles in the stalks of sorghum plants and measuring their size, researchers can quantify important differences in genetically distinct lines of crop plants.

Superresolution microscopy is used as an alternative to scanning electron microscopy to study incredibly small structures, like the surface texture of the sunflower pollen grains that dance through this image. Special labeling techniques enhance the contrast of the image to reveal details that are otherwise not visible in conventional microscopy. There are many useful applications for this technology, including identification of pollen types in ecological studies and in forensics.

Women and men's voices change differently with age as their nerves and muscles are affected by time and disease. The muscles of the voice box, the larynx, are hard to study in human patients, but easier to study in animal models. In this image of a rat larynx, different types of muscle fibers are labeled with red and green dye. By comparing the types and sizes of fibers in different animals, researchers can better understand the functioning of the larynx and how it changes with age.

Like the Banner Image, “A Clear Mind,” the mouse brain seen here was prepared with a technique that makes the tissue transparent while leaving it intact. Animal brains are large, complex structures, and can be much more easily studied when the need to image them one section at a time is eliminated. By examining the activity and distribution of genes and proteins, researchers can identify mechanisms involved in social and emotional learning across diverse species, in order to better understand social behavior and social disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and depression.

Ultrasound imaging is used extensively in diagnostic medicine. When tiny, stable bubbles like the ones shown here are introduced to the bloodstream as a contrast agent, the difference between blood vessels and the surrounding tissue in echogenicity (the ability to reflect the ultrasound waves) is enhanced. The resulting image quality leads to improved diagnosis of cancers and vascular diseases.

The black and white shapes seen in this image are the embryos of living fruit flies imaged at many stages of development over the course of 24 hours. The nervous system shows up as bright white, with processes like thin wires reaching out to muscles throughout the body. Visualizing the nervous system in a healthy, living organism as it takes shape helps researchers uncover new information about how neurons and whole brains develop.

The striped pillars seen in this image are muscle fibers in the larynx of a rat. Areas of green mark the places where nerves contact the muscle. The purpose of this project was to compare and contrast techniques to determine the most effective way to obtain high resolution images of these junctions between nerves and muscles. Detailed examination of the neuromuscular junction structure is important for understanding how nerves and muscles change with age.

Over 300 million years ago, a shallow sea covered most of the Midwest. Over time, the sediment formed from the shells of marine creatures mixed with silt and precipitated minerals like calcite to form limestone. The contrasting shades in this luminous microscopic section of limestone, formed by the variety of minerals it comprises, allow researchers to infer the geological history of the rock and of the land it came from.

New techniques for preparing brain tissue make the membranes of cells transparent while leaving the tissue structure intact. This allows researchers to image complete brain structures at incredibly high resolution, and explore molecular signaling and neural connections in a way never possible before. This image shows a view of the inside of a mouse brain, colored with dyes to detect the presence of neural proteins.