Deep and Spatially Controlled Volume Ablations using a Two-Photon Microscope in the Zebrafish Gastrula

Summary

Embryonic development requires large-scale coordination of cell motion. Two-photon excitation mediated laser ablation allows the spatially controlled 3-dimensional ablation of large groups of deep cells. In addition, this technique can probe the reaction of collectively migrating cells in vivo to perturbations in their mechanical environment.

Abstract

Morphogenesis involves many cell movements to organize cells into tissues and organs. For proper development, all these movements need to be tightly coordinated, and accumulating evidence suggests this is achieved, at least in part, through mechanical interactions. Testing this in the embryo requires direct physical perturbations. Laser ablations are an increasingly used option that allows relieving mechanical constraints or physically isolating two cell populations from each other. However, many ablations are performed with an ultraviolet (UV) laser, which offers limited axial resolution and tissue penetration. A method is described here to ablate deep, significant, and spatially well-defined volumes using a two-photon microscope. Ablations are demonstrated in a transgenic zebrafish line expressing the green fluorescent protein in the axial mesendoderm and used to sever the axial mesendoderm without affecting the overlying ectoderm or the underlying yolk cell. Cell behavior is monitored by live imaging before and after the ablation. The ablation protocol can be used at different developmental stages, on any cell type or tissue, at scales ranging from a few microns to more than a hundred microns.

Introduction

Cell-cell interactions play vital roles in development. Cells provide signals that their direct neighbors, or cells further away, can perceive, thereby influencing their fate and/or behavior. Many of these signals are chemical in nature. For instance, in the well-characterized induction events, one cell group produces diffusible molecules affecting the fate of another cell population¹. Other signals, however, are mechanical; cells exert forces and constraints on their neighbors, which the neighbors perceive and respond to².

One way of studying the importance of these cell-cell interactions

Protocol

All animal work was approved by the Ethical Committee N 59 and the Ministère de l'Education Nationale, de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche under the file number APAFIS#15859-2018051710341011v3. Some of the steps described below are specific to our equipment and software but could be easily adapted to different equipment.

1. Injection preparation

1. Prepare 75 mL of 1% agarose solution in Embryo Medium (EM).
2. Place the injecting mold in a 90 mm Petri dish and pour approximately 50 mL of agarose, enough for the mold to float. Let the agarose solidify and remove the injecting mold.
3. Prepare an agarose-coat....

Results

To sever the polster in its middle, a Tg(gsc:GFP) embryo, injected with Histone2B-mCherry mRNAs was mounted at the 70% epiboly stage, as described in step 4. The polster was identified by GFP expression, and the embryo was mounted so that the plane of the polster is perpendicular to the optical axis (Figure 1B). Tilting the embryo away from this position will complicate the procedure. The light will have to go through more tissues to reach the ablation planes, and ablation planes wi.......

Discussion

Here, we describe a protocol that uses non-linear optics to perform deep and spatially well-defined volume ablations. The most critical step of the protocol is to find treatment conditions that provide sufficient energy to allow ablations, but not too much energy, to avoid excessive debris or cavitation. The amount of delivered energy at the target site mainly depends on: (1) the laser exit power, (2) the quality of laser alignment, (3) the nature of the tissue through which the light passes to reach the ablation plane, .......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
25x water immersion objective	Olympus	XLPLN25XWMP2
Agarose	PanReac AppliChem	A8963,0500
Data analysis software : Matlab	Math Works
Electro-optic modulator (EOM)	ConOptics	350-80LA
Embryo Medium (EM) solution			Westerfield, M. The Zebrafish Book. A Guide for the Laboratory Use of Zebrafish (Danio rerio), 5th Edition. University of Oregon Press, Eugene (Book). (2000).
Environmental chamber chamber	Okolab	H201-T-UNIT-BL
EOM driver	ConOptics	302RM
Fluorescence source	Lumencor	SOLA
Glass bottom dishes	MatTek	P35G-0-10-C
Glass capillaries	Harvard Apparatus	300085	Outside diameter 1.0 mm, inside diameter 0.58 mm
Glass pipettes	Volac	D810	Tip should be fire polished
Green/ablation laser	Spectra Physics	Mai Tai HP DeepSee
Histone2B-mCherry mRNA			Synthesized from pCS2-H2B-mCherry plasmid (Dumortier& al. 2012)
Image analysis software: IMARIS	Bitplane
ImSpector software	Abberior Instruments Development Team
Injection mold	Adapative Science Tools	I-34
Microloader tips	Eppendorf	5242956003
Micromanipulator	Narishige	MN-151
Micropipette puller	Sutter	P-1000
mMESSAGE mMACHINE SP6 Transcription Kit	Invitrogen	AM1340
Penicillin-Streptomycin	Thermofisher	15140-122	10 000 units penicillin and 10 mgstreptomycin per ml
Photomultiplier tube (PMT)	Hammamatsu	H7422-40
PicoPump (Air injector)	World Precision Instrument	PV820
Red laser	Spectra Physics	OPO/Insight DeepSee
RNAse free water for injection	Sigma	W3500
Spreadsheet software: Excel	Microsoft
Stereomicroscope	Nikon	SMZ18
Tg(gsc:GFP) zebrafish line			Doitsidou, M. et al. Guidance of primordial germ cell migration by the chemokine SDF-1. Cell. 111 (5), 647–59, doi: doi.org/10.1016/S0092-8674(02)01135-2 (2002).
TriM Scope II microscope	La Vision Biotech