Resting microglial cells exhibit tubular membrane protrusions

Abstract

Nano- and microtubular structures have recently become a subject of increasing interest due to their importance in biology and medicine as well as their technological potential. Such structures have been observed in anorganic (Iijima, 1991) as well as in organic (Schnur 1993; Oda et al. 1991) systems. Micro- and nanotubular protrusions of bilayer membranes have been found in cells (Kralj-Iglic et al. 1998; Kralj-Iglic et al. 2001a) and phospholipid vesicles (Kralj-Iglic et al. 2002; Kralj-Iglic et al. 2001b). In this work we describe membrane protrusions in microglial cells.

Keywords

• microglia
• shape
• tubular structure
• bilayer couple model