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Cell Motility Movies

Reviewed:	Jun 18, 2004 by Biology Editorial Board
Overview:	A collection of high-quality movies of molecules involved in cell motility. The movies are primarily of vesicle and organelle movements in axoplasm extruded from squid axons. There are also animations showing the predicted structure and mechanism of kinesin and myosin V molecular motors. The site also contains confocal movies of endoplasmic reticulum in living squid axons. Includes vesicle movement, myosin, and neuronal transport. Some text and audio files are included to explain what is being seen.
Learning Goals:	Seeing motility in real time. Comparing motility, structure, and function one type of microtubule-based motor (kinesin) to an actin-based motor (myosin V).
Target Student Population:	Undergraduates in an upper level cell biology course. Graduate students. Could be used as an instructor demonstration in an introductory biology course.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:	Cell Biology, and some knowledge of motility and molecular motors.
Type of Material:	mpg, mov, and avi movies and animations
Recommended Uses:	Best use would be as demonstrations of organelle motility in one of the primary models of motility ? the squid axon. Students could use the cartoons of motors to learn about the structural organization of kinesin and myosin V.
Technical Requirements:	Windows Media Player, Quicktime Player to play .avi, .mpg, and .mov files.

Rating:

Strengths:

High quality files of movies shot through microsopes.
Illustrate dynamic properties of a living cell.
Large files allow you to display the movies at >1/2 the screen size with little pixelation. Consequently, you can see high resolution images of organelle
motility. Particularly good for DIC-movies of microtubule-based motility.

Concerns:

The videos of motility have no arrows or voice directions to indicate the
locations of microtubule-based motility or actin-based motility. Consequently,
you need significant experience in the field of motility to distinguish between
the two. The actin-based motility is difficult to distinguish from Brownian
motion, even for an experienced researcher.
The animation of myosin V shows it using ATP, but the kinesin animation does not show ATP. Thus, it implies that kinesin does not use ATP.
The confocal movie of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is quite confusing. Am I
watching movements of ER in one plane of focus? Or is the movie showing
different planes of focus in the confocal? If it is movement, what is the time
scale?
Annotation of images is minimal. Without significant training in cell biology an instructor or student would have a difficult time knowing what they are seeing.

Rating:

Strengths:

High quality movies that allow students to see how cells transport molecules and change over time.
Files in a variety of sizes and formats to match your connection speed and
resolution requirements.

Concerns:

The biggest drawback to this site is the lack of adequate annotation. There are some .avi sound files and some text, but it would be very difficult for a student to follow what they were seeing on the screen.
No attempt is made to provide any assignments for the students. It is unclear what the students should learn f rom viewing these videos.
The kinesin and myosin V animation should be given their own clip.
Vesicle_sound_large.mov will not open on Quicktime 6.5 or Media Player 9 ?
remove or fix.
Vesicle-mt-actin.mov is a dead link.
Explain more clearly what each of the files contains. It is frustrating to wait for a large file to download only to discover it contains the same content as another file.

Rating:

Strengths:	Files are high quality, and once downloaded run well. Provides much needed high-quality images of organelle motility and cartoons of the structure of molecular motors.
Concerns:	Highly difficult to understand the content unless you already know something about organelle motility. A student would not be able to identify microtubules, microtubule-based motility, actin-based motility. The files are very large, and require several minutes to download. They should be provided as .zip files for easier download.

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