Combining various imaging techniques, an interdisciplinary team of scientists in Europe have developed a way to visualize and quantify early embryogenesis in zebrafish, according to a study published this week in Science. "We want to turn all the verbal descriptions of biology into something that's going to be quantitative and formal," said embryologist and coauthor Nadine Peyriéras of the linkurl:National Centre for Scientific Research;http://www.cnrs.fr/ (CNRS) in France. "We've been largely unable so far to do that." The team used two imaging techniques that take advantage of the fact that signals are emitted when lasers interact with living tissues. One type of light emission, known as the third harmonic generation, provides information about the contours of the cell. The second harmonic generation, in contrast, provides information about mitotic spindles. Together, these two signals yielded a three dimensional view of developing zebrafish embryos, a model organism of vertebrate embryogenesis, allowing the...
THG imaging the zebrafish embryo from the one-cell stage
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
Membrane dynamics and vesicular trafficking at the yolk blastoderm interface
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
THG/SHG 4D imaging of the zebrafish embryo cleavage stages
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
Conformal THG/SHG 4D imaging of the zebrafish embryo cleavage stages
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
Courtesy of N. Olivier, et al.
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