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Quiesce: Some cells rest. Some stop for good.

qui·esce /kwee-ESS/ verb, of a cell: to rest from dividing, and still be able to start again.

The name is set from seven cells in Figure 1. The paper below is set on the same clock.Set from seven cells in Fig. 1

Quiesce is a research laboratory in Adelaide. We study how cells age, and we are asking why one cell rests and wakes again while its neighbour stops dividing for good. This page is set like a paper, and on a clock: its headings grow wider and thinner as you read down, the way the cells in Figure 1 do when they stop. Its Results section is still blank.

Keywords cell division · quiescence · senescence · tissue · protein shape

Read the abstract ↓ Write to the lab

Figure 1a as a still, midway on its clock: a sheet of pale cells on grid paper, the first large, dark stopped cells in the middle, and a few stained cells hatched in blue near the centre

Drag across the figure to stain cells.

A still of the figure, midway on its clock: the sheet is full, many cells are resting for lack of room, and the first large, flat stopped cells sit in the middle.

Figure 1. A sheet of cells, drawn by your browser as you watch.here as a still from the drawing your browser makes when it can. (a) Each outline is one cell, pushing at its neighbours and holding on to them. As the figure’s clock runs, the sheet fills, cells with no room rest, and some stop dividing and grow large and flat, the shape senescent cells take. Seven cells carry the letters of our name, and the name above widens with them. (b–g) The same sheet at six moments on its clock, kept as the clock passes them. Drag across the sheet to stain cells and follow them. The shading follows a scale drawn for this page, and so does the clock: every heading below is set at one of its frames. An illustration of an idea, not data. The question under it: what tells a cell to stop for good, rather than rest?

§0 · F1 of 10 · Early

What is this lab, in plain words?

Most cells in a body are not dividing at any given moment. Many are resting, and can start again when there is a wound to close or tissue to replace. Some stop for good: they grow large and flat, stay where they are, and change the signals they send to the cells around them. We study that second kind of stopping, in cells grown in dishes and in simple computer models like Figure 1: what tips a cell into it, why neighbours in the same dish behave so differently, and what a stopped cell does to the tissue around it. The questions we can’t answer yet are in §5.

What this lab is not No products. No treatments. No trials. No health claims. Research only.

List of figures

  • Fig. 1A sheet of cellsA still
  • Fig. 2An alpha helixA still
  • Fig. 3ResultsNot drawn yet
  • Fig. 4The same sheet, laterA still
  • Plates A–EThe lab at workPhotographs

§1 · F2 of 10 · Early

What is the difference between resting and stopping?

Most of the cells in a body are not dividing at any given moment. Many are quiescent1: resting, with the means to divide switched off but kept, ready to start again when there is a wound to close or tissue to replace. We named the lab for that state, because it is the one we most want to understand.

In plain words

1 Quiescent: resting. Not dividing, but able to.

Some cells leave it and don’t come back. They become senescent2: they stop dividing for good, grow large and flat, and change the signals they send to the cells around them. That may be part of how a body keeps a damaged cell from copying itself. But stopped cells gather with age, and nobody yet knows exactly why a cell takes that turn, or whether it is one decision or many small ones.

2 Senescent: stopped. Not dividing, and not going to.

Every cell that divides goes round the cell cycle3. We have set this page to show the two ways a cell can leave it. Below, the word cell is drawn at six moments on Figure 1’s clock: narrow and firm while a cell can still divide, wide and thin once it has stopped. Every heading on the page is set at one of those moments, one step later for each section. The step with the question mark is where a cell turns, and it is what we are trying to draw properly.

3 Cell cycle: the steps a cell goes through to copy itself and split in two.

The word cell, set six times: narrow and firm at frame 0, wider and thinner at frames 2, 4, 6 and 8, and wide and hairline at frame 10.

The scale this paper is set on. We use the width of a letter the way Figure 1 uses shading: narrow for a cell that can still divide, wide and thin for one that has stopped. Both are drawn for this page; a real cell’s width is not measured in type.

The shapes · one cell, twice

Three cells drawn at one scale: a small round dividing cell, a resting cell of the same size, and a stopped cell about two and a half times as wide and flattened along its length. DividingRestingcan wakeStopped · stays About one cell across

The shading

  • Dividing
  • Resting, no room
  • Stopping
  • Stopped

The shading is ours, drawn for this page. Real signs that a cell has stopped are several, and none of them is a colour. The model also leaves out a great deal, including cells dying.

The stain

Dragging across Figure 1 marks the cells you touch, the way a dye marks cells in a dish. A marked cell passes the mark to both of its daughters when it divides, so a line of cells can be followed through the clock. That is why a real stain is used: to follow a cell and its daughters, and see which of them stop.

The letter register · Fig. 1a, now

  1. QResting
  2. UResting
  3. IResting
  4. EStopped
  5. SStopped
  6. CResting
  7. EResting

A table of the figure, not of data: each letter of our name is tied to one cell in Figure 1, and set as wide as that cell has stopped.

§2 · F3 of 10 · Early

What does a protein look like up close?

Proteins do much of a cell’s work, and their shape is what lets them do it. Each is a chain of amino acids4 folded into a shape, and one of the commonest shapes is the alpha helix5, a chain wound into a spring and held there by hydrogen bonds6.

In plain words

4 Amino acid: one building block of a protein.

5 Alpha helix: a chain wound into a spring.

6 Hydrogen bond: a weak link that holds one turn to the next.

An ageing cell may keep fewer of its proteins in good shape. Which ones, and whether it matters, is one of the things we ask about.

Figure 2a as a still: an alpha helix on a dark plate, seen from a three-quarter view, its backbone of pale atoms wound into a spring, short side chains, dashed hydrogen bonds from each turn to the next and a faint ribbon along the path
Figure 2b, the helix from above: eighteen numbered building blocks on a spiral, each 100 degrees round from the last, with the hydrogen bonds drawn as chords from each block to the one four along. 123456789101112131415161718

The chain itself: the same three atoms repeated, one building block after another. Everything else hangs off it.

One amino acid. A protein is a string of these; this helix is 18 of them.

The part of each building block that differs from one kind to the next. Here they are short stubs, because this is a generic helix.

Weak links between each building block and the one four along. They hold each turn to the next and keep the spiral a spiral.

Nothing you could touch. It is how people draw the path of the backbone so the shape reads at a glance.

Seen from a three-quarter view, at rest, with the far side gently out of focus.

Figure 2. An alpha helix, one of the shapes a chain of amino acids folds into, built here from 18 of them using textbook angles. (a) In space: drag to turn it.a still of it turned three quarters. The ticks beside it mark each full turn; eighteen building blocks make five. (b) From above: each building block sits 100 degrees round from the last, so about three and a half make a turn. A generic helix drawn to show the parts, not a protein we have studied. An illustration of an idea, not data.

Drag, or use the arrow keys, to turn it. Click it, then scroll or pinch to zoom.

§3 · F4 of 10 · Midway

How do we look at a cell?

A researcher in a grey hijab, lab coat and gloves works with a pipette inside a biosafety cabinet.
Plate A, about a metre across: Working inside the cabinet.

  1. 3.1 Growing cells

    We grow cells in shallow dishes, in a warm, humid cabinet kept at body temperature. They are fed, moved to new dishes when they run out of room, and checked every morning.

    What it can’t tell us A dish is not a body; cells on plastic behave differently from cells in tissue.

  2. 3.2 Watching them

    We photograph the same dishes through a microscope over days and weeks, so we can follow one cell from picture to picture, like a slow film.

    What it can’t tell us A picture shows shape, not reasons.

    Gloved hands turn the focus knob of a microscope, a small clear dish lit from below on its stage.
    Plate B, about a forearm across: Watching.

  3. 3.3 Staining

    Dyes that mark one kind of cell, or one part of it, let us see which cells have stopped and where they sit.

    What it can’t tell us No single stain says for certain that a cell has stopped; we look for several signs together.

  4. 3.4 Looking at shape

    We trace outlines and compare sizes, because a stopped cell’s shape is one of its clearest signs.

    What it can’t tell us A cell can be large for other reasons.

  5. 3.5 Modelling

    We build sheets of cells in a computer, like Figure 1, to test whether an explanation hangs together before we try it in a dish. Sometimes a model you can hold makes a shape easier to think about.

    What it can’t tell us A model contains only what we put in.

    A ball-and-stick model of a helix on a desk beside grid paper sketched with circles.
    Plate C, about a hand across: A shape you can hold. The same shape as Figure 2 at two sizes: the helix in Figure 2 is a few millionths of a millimetre long; the model on the desk is about the length of a hand, tens of millions of times larger.

§4 · F5 of 10 · Midway

What have we found?

A paper usually puts its findings here.

Figure 3. Not drawn yet. This is the figure we are working towards: across, how long a cell has rested; up, how likely it is to start again. When we can draw it honestly, it will go here. We may yet find the axes are the wrong ones.

§5 · F6 of 10 · Midway

What don’t we know yet?

We keep this list on the wall. It gets longer more often than it gets shorter.

  1. Q1. What makes a resting cell decide not to wake?

    A resting cell and a stopped one can look alike for a while; only following one cell for a long time tells them apart.

    Where we are
    Looking
    What would answer it
    Across, how long a cell has rested · up, how likely it is to start again (this is Figure 3)

  2. Q2. Does a stopped cell change the cells around it, and how far does that reach?

    A dish is crowded and busy; one cell’s influence is hard to separate from the rest.

    Where we are
    A guess we are testing
    What would answer it
    Across, distance from a stopped cell · up, how often its neighbours divide

  3. Q3. Why does a stopped cell grow so large and flat?

    Growing without dividing may be the cause of stopping, or only a side effect of it.

    Where we are
    Early
    What would answer it
    Across, time since it stopped · up, how much ground it covers

  4. Q4. Is stopping one event, or many small ones that add up?

    No single sign says for certain that a cell has stopped, so we look at several together.

    Where we are
    A guess we are testing
    What would answer it
    Across, small signs, one by one · up, whether the cell stops

  5. Q5. Which of a cell’s proteins lose their shape first, and does it matter?

    Shape is hard to see inside a living cell: an ordinary light microscope blurs anything smaller than about a fifth of a thousandth of a millimetre, and a protein is far smaller than that.

    Where we are
    Early
    What would answer it
    Across, how long ago a cell stopped · up, how many of its proteins keep their shape

  6. Q6. Is “for good” always for good?

    Stopping is thought to be permanent. We would like to know whether that is always true, and what it would take to see an exception.

    Where we are
    Looking
    What would answer it
    Across, time since stopping · up, chance of starting again

§6 · F7 of 10 · Late

What became of the cells you stained?

Figure 4 as a still: the sheet at the end of its clock drawn as three channels, a dot for every nucleus, open blue rings for the stopped cells gathered in the middle, and fine outlines around the lines of cells followed from the centre
Figure 4. The sheet from Figure 1 at the end of its clock: stopped cells, drawn as rings, hold much of the middle. An illustration of an idea, not data.

This is where the figure’s clock ends. In a dish, as in this drawing, stopped cells don’t leave. They stay, take up room and change what their neighbours do. Most of our questions start here.

§7 · F8 of 10 · Late

What is this lab not?

  • We do not make products.
  • We do not offer treatments or advice.
  • We do not run trials, and we do not see patients.
  • Nothing on this page is about making anyone live longer.
  • The figures are illustrations of ideas, not results.
  • If something sounds like a promise about your health, it did not come from us.

§8 · F9 of 10 · Late

Where is the work done?

A long white laboratory bench in morning light, one researcher in a hijab reading at the far end.
Plate D, several metres: The room in the morning.

Our rooms are in the city, on Kaurna Country. The day starts with whoever is on the morning check looking at every dish. Afternoons are long and quiet at the microscope. The model runs overnight, and in the morning we see what it drew. Students who want to know what this kind of research is like from the inside are welcome to write.

A clear culture plate of small round wells glowing on a light box, a gloved fingertip at its edge.
Plate E, about a hand’s width: A plate of wells.

§9 · F10 of 10 · The end of the clock

How do you write to us?

Students looking for a project, researchers with a question in common, or readers who want to know more: write to us. We don’t give health advice.

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We don’t give health advice, and we can’t comment on anyone’s care.

A note on the type

The name at the top of this page is set in Martian Mono, a typeface that can widen and thin. Seven of its letters are tied to seven cells in Figure 1, and widen when their cell stops dividing. The headings are set on the same scale, one step later for each section, so the paper grows wider and thinner as you read it, the way the cells do. The scale is ours, drawn for this page. Prose is set in Geist. Figures 1, 2 and 4 were drawn in your browser as you read; Figure 3 is blank on purpose. There is no reference list: this page reports questions, not findings.

  • Fig. 1 · A still
  • Fig. 2 · A still
  • Fig. 3 · Not drawn yet
  • Fig. 4 · A still