• Question: what is blebbing?

    Asked by celt105 to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 15 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      Great Scott – heard about this one before…

      Cells can move their fronts forwards two ways. Either they can use pseudopods, which are like very small feet, or they can use blebs, which are little blister-like things that protrude from the front. See here:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleb_(cell_biology)

    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      That is quite a question…and Robert is definitely the expert here.
      I am curious: Where did you come across blebbing?

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      See for yourself! Here’s a video that someone has made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKHHBBfkbL8

    • Photo: Mariana Campos

      Mariana Campos answered on 16 Nov 2012:

      What a great question. Once in a meeting we had around 20 scientists discussing for 20 min if the cells we were looking at were blebbing or not. I think the best is really to see for yourself in the video Clare posted.

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