Preparation of Fixed Drosophila Oocytes for Immunostaining: A High-Throughput Method to Fix and Remove the Outer Membrane
Published: April 30, 2023
Abstract
Source: Radford, S. J., McKim, K. S. Techniques for Imaging Prometaphase and Metaphase of Meiosis I in Fixed Drosophila Oocytes. J. Vis. Exp. (2016).
Immunostaining of Drosophila late-stage oocytes can prove challenging due to the oocytes' surrounding membranes. This video describes a high-throughput method for obtaining oocytes, their fixation, and membranes' removal for immunostaining. The featured protocol demonstrates these techniques with late-stage oocytes used to visualize different stages of meiosis.
Protocol
This protocol is excerpted from Radford and McKim, Techniques for Imaging Prometaphase and Metaphase of Meiosis I in Fixed Drosophila Oocytes, J. Vis. Exp. (2016). NOTE: Procedures are performed at room temperature unless otherwise noted. Temperature-controlled incubators are used to maintain temperatures for fly rearing and crosses unless otherwise noted. 1. Preparations Prepa…
Representative Results
Drug Solvent Stock concentration Final concentration Time of treatment Effect colchicine ethanol 125 mM 150 µM 10 min or 30 min destabilize non-kinetochore (10 min) or all (…
Materials
| 16% formaldehyde | Ted Pella, Inc. | 18505 | HAZARDOUS; once opened, discard after one month |
| 250 ml beakers | Various | ||
| 5 ml tubes | Various | ||
| active dry yeast | Various | mix with water to make a paste the consistency of peanut butter | |
| Binucleine 2 | Sigma | B1186 | HAZARDOUS |
| blender | Various | ||
| bovine serum albumin | Sigma | A4161 | |
| calcium chloride | Various | ||
| colchicine | Sigma | C-9754 | HAZARDOUS |
| coverslips | VWR | 48366-227 | No. 1 1/2 |
| DMSO | Various | ||
| EGTA | Various | ||
| ethanol | Various | ||
| forceps | Ted Pella, Inc. | 5622 | Dumont tweezers high precision grade style 5 |
| glass slides | VWR | 48312-003 | |
| glucose | Various | ||
| HEPES | VWR | EM-5330 | available from several venders |
| magnesium chloride | Various | ||
| large mesh (~1,500 µm) | VWR | AA43657-NK | variety of formats and other suppliers, 12 or 14 mesh |
| small mesh (~300 µm) | Spectrum labs | 146 424 | variety of formats, e.g., 146 422 or 146 486 |
| nutator | Various | ||
| Pasteur pipets | Various | ||
| potassium acetate | Various | ||
| Cacodylic acid | Sigma | C0125 | HAZARDOUS; alternatively, sodium cacodylate may be substituted |
| potassium hydroxide | Various | ||
| sodium acetate | Various | ||
| sodium hydroxide | Various | ||
| sucrose | Various | ||
| taxol (paclitaxel) | Sigma | T1912 | HAZARDOUS |
| Triton X-100 | Fisher | PI-28314 | |
| Tween 20 | Fisher | PI-28320 | |
| vortex | Various |
Cite This Article
Preparation of Fixed Drosophila Oocytes for Immunostaining: A High-Throughput Method to Fix and Remove the Outer Membrane. J. Vis. Exp. (Pending Publication), e20122, doi: (2023).