Those cells belong to an aquatic plant called Elodea canadensis, it’s a pretty common waterweed and it can even be an invasive species 😬 but they look pretty in aquariums!

In the video you can see the cytoplasmic stream inside the cells of the plant. The small round dots moving around are the chloroplasts! Chloroplasts are small organelles that contain green chlorophyll pigments involved in photosynthesis! These pigments are able to capture energy from sunlight and convert it into energy the algae can use 🥰

After a bit of research, I learned that the movement of chloroplasts inside the cells are actually a response to wounding so they’re not only moving in response to light. By detaching a leaf or by making an incision, the chloroplasts starts moving around in about 10 minutes. This movement helps restoring the pressure inside the cells and helps repairing the wounds. The repair reaction would open specialized channels that enable inorganic ions, sugars, amino acids and hormones to move between cells by the cytoplasm! The movement of the chloroplasts is also helped by the presence of my microscope’s string light.

Animal and plant cells possess their own little skeletons that enable them to move around components like vesicles, nuclei, chromosomes during cell division and chloroplasts (only in plant cells tho)! Chloroplasts actually move around with the help of actin and microtubules which are constituents of the cytoskeleton. Chloroplasts movement conjugated to the movement of the endoplasmic reticulum would allow specialized channels that connect cells to open.

Video taken with my iPhone mounted on a BA310E Motic microscope with an @ilabcam ultra adapter 🔬

References:
Gamalei, Y. V., Fromm, J., Krabel, D., & Eschrich, W. (1994). Chloroplast movement as response to wounding in Elodea canadensis. Journal of plant physiology, 144(4-5), 518-524.

Goodwin, P. B. (1983). Molecular size limit for movement in the symplast of the Elodea leaf. Planta, 157(2), 124-130.

Menzel, D., & Schliwa, M. (1986). Motility in the siphonous green alga Bryopsis. II. Chloroplast movement requires organized arrays of both microtubules and actin filaments. European journal of cell biology, 40(2), 286-295.

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