Bud Scars

*Backblip

Warning: Science Ahead

Another picture of the yeast cells mentioned in the previous post :) A stain called calcofluor white was used to visualize the bud scars on the cells at 100X magnification using a fluorescence microscope. The stain is selective for a certain component (chitin) that are present at a high level in bud scars.

Bud scars are traces of past cell division events. The cells in the thumbnail for the picture were either in the final steps of a division, or had already divided and were adhered to each other. You can see that the place where the cells are attached/adhered to each other is brighter than other areas of the cell. In the upper left quadrant of the picture, you can also see a single cell with very clear circular bud scars. Because of the location of the bud scars (on two poles of the cells), these cells were determined to be the diploid form of S. cerevisiae.