Cell Tracking Using Photoconvertible Proteins During Zebrafish Development

The overall goal of this procedure is to track photo switched cells in a living zebra fish embryo. This is accomplished by first embedding an embryo, expressing a tissue specific photo, convertible fluorescent protein in low melting temperature aros. Next, the protein within the region of interest is completely photo converted.

Then the embryo is carefully removed from aros and maintained in egg water at 28.5 degrees Celsius until later stages. Finally, the photo converted embryo is again embedded in low melting temperature aros. Ultimately, results can be obtained that show that photo converted cells can precisely be detected at later stages due to the stable presence of the photo converted protein through confocal microscopy.