Figure 6
From: An intra-cytoplasmic route for SARS-CoV-2 transmission unveiled by Helium-ion microscopy
TNT stretched between two host cells. A TNT under mechanical tension between two cells (C1 and C2) lies on the well floor. Fully flat healthy cells and a trio of bulging and detaching infected cells (asterisk in A1) can be seen nearby. This stretched TNT pulls on both cells, shaping them with a stretched morphology (A2). We ruled out the possibility that this tension could be caused by the dehydration process because correlative microscopy showed the same stretched morphology in the hydration state in Phase Contrast prior to HeIM (blue inset). Stretched TNT between two cells often present a bulging mid-way (dotted arrow; magnified in A3) (magnification in A1 × 2700; in A2 × 10,800; in A3 × 77,000).
