The nucleus is the control centre of the cell and is well known for being the organelle which determines the fate of cells and their behaviour. However how the components in the nucleus interact together to determine fate is really difficult to see. This is because structures in the nucleus can be very small, often less than 100 nm in size. Unfortunately even the best light microscope can only image structures clearly larger than 200 nm. To make matters worse the nucleus is very dense and scatters light making it difficult to obtain a focussed image. Similarly the primary cilium is a narrow hair-like cellular projection, only 200nm in diameter. This makes it very difficult to visualise the spatial and temporal protein dynamics within the cilium and which are believed to control many aspects of cell function.
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