Using stage-specific injections to target MO to the DFC/KV cell lineage is a useful approach to study cell-autonomy of gene function and avoid pleiotropic phenotypes caused by global gene knockdown. However, these injections can be technically challenging. Injection of MO between the 256-cell and 1,000-cell stages can result in three possible outcomes: 1) the MO remains aggregated at the injection site, 2) the MO diffuses throughout the yolk and enters DFC/KV cells or 3) the MO diffuses throughout the yolk and enters DFC/KV cells and other embryonic cells. Therefore, selecting embryos in which MO has moved exclusively to the DFC/KV cells is a key step in this experiment. It is important to note that MO can load into all DFC/KV cells but often enters only a subset of these cells10. The reasons underlying this mosaic targeting remain unclear, but may reflect variability in how efficiently the MO moves through the yolk and/or the timing of closure of individual bridges between the yolk and DFC progenitors. We have not found conditions that increase targeting efficiency, but rather have relied on selecting embryos in which most of the KV cells have taken up MO. The success rate for generating embryos with MO in the majority of DFC/KV cells is typically ~20-30%, but this can be quite variable from day to day. For this reason, we recommend injecting as many embryos as possible (≥100), and then carefully selecting the embryos that have the appropriate distribution of fluorescent morpholino.
Control experiments are vital for interpreting the results of DFC-targeted injections. A mismatch MO or standard negative control MO (from Gene Tools, LLC) should be used to control for non-specific effects. In addition, since DFC-targeted injections deliver MO to both the yolk and DFC/KV cell lineage (Figure 2F), it is important to determine whether phenotypes in these embryos are due to loss of gene function in DFC/KV cells or in the yolk cell. Comparing phenotypes in DFC-targeted embryos with yolk-targeted embryos (Figures 2F-G) will identify DFC/KV cell-specific affects. Of course, some genes may function in both the DFC/KV cells and the yolk16. Although we focus of MO-mediated loss-of-function analyses here, the DFC-targeted injection technique and associated control experiments can be used to assess a gain-of-function by injecting synthetic mRNA to overexpress a particular protein in the DFC/KV lineage17,22,24,29. One clever adaption of this approach used DFC-targeted mRNA injections to rescue global MO knockdown only in DFC/KV cells30. However, it should be noted that not all mRNAs injected in this manner result in expression of the encoded protein in DFCs and KV cells, and important controls should be included to assess the level of protein expression and distribution.
Successful delivery of microbeads into the KV lumen to assess asymmetric flow depends on injecting the beads at optimal stages during the rapid development of the transient KV organ. We begin mounting embryos at the 4-6 somite stages (~12 hpf) and then inject microbeads into KV up to the 10 somite stage (14 hpf). Prior to the 4 somite stage, the lumen is often too small to inject, and at later stages (>10 somites) the injection becomes difficult due to KV moving deeper into the embryo. One limitation of this technique is that requires the KV lumen to expand to a size that can be successfully injected with microbeads. In cases where MO knockdown of a particular gene severely disrupts KV organization and/or reduces KV lumen size (reviewed in ref. 31) it will be difficult, if not impossible, to assay flow using this approach.
When preparing embryos for injection of microbeads into KV, it is important to mount the embryo straight along the embryonic axis with KV facing up (Figure 1H), as embryo position can affect the angle that the needle enters KV and the angle of imaging beads in KV. It is also important to use a small-bore injection needle and small injection volume of microbeads to avoid damaging KV. We recommend practicing to develop a smooth injection stroke to insert the needle into KV, release the beads and then quickly retract the needle from the embryo. When conditions are optimal, we are able to successfully deliver microbeads to ~50% (e.g. n=5/10) of the injected embryos.
In summary, stage-specific MO injections and visualization of microbeads in KV provide an opportunity to study the function of candidate genes in LR ciliated cells.