A new type of fluorescent microscopy has allowed biologists to reconstruct the early development of the tropical freshwater zebrafish (Danio rerio), a model organism used in labs around the globe.
Philipp Keller, Joachim Wittbrodt and their colleagues developed digital scanned laser-light-sheet fluorescence microscopy at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. The technique involves labelling nuclear proteins at the one-cell stage, and moving an extremely thin laser beam vertically and horizontally through specimens, which is less harmful to them than conventional techniques and can thus be used to study cells over longer time periods.
Keller's team mapped the nuclear positions and movement of every single cell in normal and mutant zebrafish embryos during the embryos' first 24 hours (pictured). They then built a model of germ layer formation, and identified a maternally defined break in symmetry — the future body axis — as the cell ball grew.
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Molecular biology: Zebrafish cell zipcodes. Nature 455, 838 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/455838a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/455838a
