What Happens to Fats Eaten by Fish? (IMAGE)

Carnegie Institution for Science

What Happens to Fats Eaten by Fish?

Caption

This is a live image of the liver of a translucent, larval zebrafish. It was taken using confocal microscopy, which allows for clear images of the internal organs of a whole live animal. Quinlivan fed a fluorescently tagged fatty acid to a larval zebrafish and then photographed its liver at 400x magnification. The round dots of varying sizes are lipid droplets, which contain a kind of fat called triglyceride. These triglycerides were constructed using the fluorescent fat consumed by the larval zebrafish. Fluorescence also shows up in the gallbladder (GB) and developing kidney (K).

Credit

Vanessa Quinlivan

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