This animation of a cell’s inner workings is absolutely stunning. Here is a bit more about the biology and the animators.

You see an actin filament being manufactured from its constituent monomers; these fibres are instrumental in pulling subcellular structures around the cell and also for providing a framework for materials to be transported around the cell on. A protein comes in and chop the actin fibre – the manufacture and dissociation of both actin and microtubules is a regulated, dynamic process. Similarly you see microtubule formation and a microtubule catastrophe – when microtubules dissociate, it’s very fast. Then the coolest bit of the video – a microtubule motor protein pulls a vesicle to its destination in the cell. The cellular motor proteins really do look like this – their mechanism of action is basically a walk forwards.

Beautiful! (via MoFi)

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