Fig. 1.
Heuristics for a possible linkage between light scattering and aggregation. (a) Appearance of a typical aggregate of 3T3x cells (arrow) whose nuclei are stained with Hoechst dye. (b) The same aggregate stained with LysoTracker reveals that lysosome-rich cells are located at the center of the aggregate. (c) Lysosome staining of a 3T3 cell. (d) Darkfield micrograph of the same cell suggesting that the light-scattering centers of the cell contain the lysosomes. The dark ovals in c and d are the nuclei given that they do not scatter light and do not contain lysosomes. (e) Darkfield micrograph of a hyperscattering 3T3x (labeled 2) cell that was formed by the ingestion of strongly light-scattering, 1-μm, latex particles. The cell is surrounded by particle-free 3T3x cells (e.g., labeled 1) whose perinuclear granules (png) scatter much less light than the hyperscattering cell. (f) Hoechst staining of an aggregate of hyperscattering cells. (g) Brightfield micrograph of the same aggregate. The cells with the most ingested particles that appear the darkest because they scatter the most light are located at the center of the aggregate.