Look at how quickly and easily detergent breaks up the membrane of cells

 

I was really grateful to find this video with just 48 views, uploaded in 2012 by a guy named Kyle Nilson. It shows what happens to cells when you add detergent. Look at how quickly they're damaged! By the way, it is thanks to this video that I now know what a Hela cell is. I had never heard the term until today, and somehow I missed the fact that Oprah Winfrey made a whole movie about Henrietta Lacks, the woman whom these cells originally came from. It's an amazing story, and this woman deserves to be recognized for her contribution (willing participant or not) to science. Thank you, Henrietta!  For anyone who'd like to learn more about Henrietta and how these cells came to be used in modern medicine, scroll down to the next video. 

Utter, Complete Devastation

 

You can see from the photo on this page, that it has a cell membrane (composed of a lipid bilayer) just like a typical human cell.  But I looked it up just to see if this was a typical lipid bilayer, and found this study that said:  

13osmann, Hagopian, and Eylar (41) have isolated surface by guest on October 26, 2020 http://www.jbc.org/ Downloaded from 4110 Membranes of Animal Cells. IV Vol. 244, No. 15 membranes from HeLa cells grown in suspension culture. These membranes have approximately the same lipid to protein ratio as rat liver and L cell surface membranes (Table VI, Line 8). HeLa cell surface membranes surprisingly have been reported to have a low phospholipid content (437; of the total lipid) and therefore a high cholesterol-phospholipid molar ratio of 1.05. The neutral lipid and phospholipid contents are quite different from that of L cell and rat liver surface membranes. Since a high ratio of cholesterol to phospholipid appears to be a common feature of all surface membranes which have been studied at the present time, Bosmann et al. (41) have suggested that the very high ratio found for HeLa cell membranes is a good criterion of the purity of the preparations. We suggest that the published figures for HeLa cell membrane lipids indicate that HeLa cell surface membranes may belong to a different class of surface membrane than do those of liver and L cell. The IIeLa cell membrane appears to be more closely related to microvilli and erythrocyte membranes and myelin (Table VI, Lines 9 to II), all of which have cholesterol-phospholipid molar ratios of 0.9 or higher. Purified fragments of plasma membranes from an avian source (influenza virus lipoprotein envelopes (Table VI, Line 12)) have also been shown to have a cholesterolphospholipid molar ratio greater than 1. It can be seen from Table VI that surface membranes which have high cholesterol-phospholipid molar ratios may also have high glycolipid contents. Dod and Gray (10) found at least fire alkali-stable components of rat liver plasma membranes which were chromatographically identified as glycolipids. The glycolipid content of the plasma membranes was estimated to be 7y0 by gravimetric analysis. This number was calculated by subtraction of the weights of neutral lipid and phospholipid from the weight of the total lipid. So information is available concerning the presence of glycolipids in the HeLa cell membranes. We have found by nongravimetric means that glycolipid accounts for less than 170 of the lipid of L cell surface membranes prepared by the FJIA procedure.3 It may be possible to classify surface membranes into groups based upon their glycolipid tolltent since, as seen in ‘Table VI, some membranes are rich in glycolipids and others arc quite poor.  

https://www.jbc.org/content/244/15/4103.full.pdf


Henrietta Lacks: The Immortal Woman



Multiple Cells Lysing at 400x

SSMFDC Cabbage cells lysing. Cell walls were removed in advance with cellulase and agitation. A drop of detergent was added to water in wet mount. The detergent increases the solubility of the cell membrane, which slowly dissolves. Lysis is first indicated by loss of purple-colored anthocyanin 





https://www.technologynetworks.com/cell-science/lists/5-contributions-hela-cells-have-made-to-science-305036

5 Contributions HeLa Cells Have Made to Science

LISTICLE   Jun 13, 2018 | By Anna MacDonald, Science Writer for Technology Networks

Cell lysis





I looked at this video that shows a laser being used to lyse cells. BUT, I couldn't help noticing one cell that appears to be lysing on it's own, without a laser (at least, as far as I can tell). It looks as if it's being broken apart by micelles from a soap molecule. It's clear that one of the cells in this video is being torn apart by what looks like micelles from soap molecules. True I am not sure but it's obvious that there are little clusters of circles that are drawing nearer to each other, causing one large bubble to suddenly form against the outer membrane of the cell, and next thing you know, it busts wide open. I did some screen shots of what I'm talking about, and you can click on the video below to see it (on the right side of the screen). 

Lysis.mpg