Villi in the small intestine

3D reconstruction of villi in the small intestine of the mouse. Villi are small finger like projection that cover the internal surface of the small intestine to increase the surface area and assist in digestion. This images was created from a wholemount that had a fluorescent stain applied to mark different cellular components. The tips of the villi have been cropped away to show the internal morphology. The red shows the F-actin (stained with rhodamine phalloidin), which cover the surface of each villus. Cell nuclei are labelled blue (stained with DAPI). Wellcome Image Award winner 2009 Wellcome Image Awards 2009.