SH-SY-5Y look ugly... v little cytoplasm - Is this normal? (Jan/22/2007 )

I am working with two neuroblastoma cell-lines atm, SK-N-SH and SH-SY-5Y. My problem is that the SY5Y look really ugly and it is proving difficult to get good pictures of them (i mostly do immunofluorescence). Them seem to be really clumpy and have very little cytoplasm, which is a particular problem as I want to look at localization of proteins, e.g. peripheral vs. perinuclear. Also, it looks like there a few cells growing on top of others, which are making my non-confocal images especially nasty. Attached is the sort of thing I'm talking about...

So, is this normal for SH-SY-5Y? Or have I selected for an unusual phenotype by some slack cell culture method?
Thanks

SHSY5Y cells dont have much cytoplasm. They tend to clump if they are not tritrated well before plating. Try some other cell lines, might b better for localisation studies.