Alex Palazzo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Toronto.
Last week was demo week here at the Palazzo lab. Both Zeiss and Nikon dropped off their latest equipment and we had the chance to image some RNA. In addition we finally completed some badly needed lab renovations and as a result had an operation tissue culture area. I went ahead and transfected COS7 cells with a plasmid that we just received from Open Biosystems that contains a gene of interest (a membrane bound protein whose RNA did not contain an SSCR, for those keeping track) and tried out a new FISH probe. Of course we were missing forceps and those great porcelain coverslip racks from Coorstek and I had to steal cells from our neighbouring lab (thanks Angus) but over the weekend I did some great imaging of the newly expressed mRNA.
The result:
Oh yeah! It was the first time I was on the 'scope since early summer, and
I have to say that It felt good to be "doing science" again.
Comments
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Posted by: Vincent Waitzkin | December 1, 2009 4:57 AM
Gorgeous. What is that pattern?
Posted by: Theresa | December 1, 2009 2:34 PM
This is an mRNA that encodes a membrane bound protein expressed in a COS-7 cell and is stained by fluorescent in situ hybridization. The mRNA is targeted to the endoplasmic reticulum - hence the reticular type distribution of fluorescence.
Posted by: Alex Palazzo | December 2, 2009 3:20 PM
Thanks! Logically, it sounded like it should be in the ER, but I usually see ER as more densely packed and blobby. Nice to be able to resolve the tubules!
Posted by: Theresa | December 3, 2009 9:50 AM