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Chapters
- 00:00Introduction
- 01:34Maintaining Horseshoe crabs for research
- 02:22Basic Limulus Anatomy
- 03:58Prepare Horseshoe crab for bleeding
- 05:25Bleeding a Horseshoe crab
- 07:49Plasma Preparation and Storage
- 09:46Making explant cultures of aggregated ameobocytes
- 11:16Conclusion
The American horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, is arguably the most convenient source for large quantities of blood of any invertebrate. The blood is simple in composition, with only one cell-type in the general circulation, the granular amebocyte, and only three abundant proteins in the plasma, hemocyanin, the C-reactive proteins, and α2-macroglobulin. Blood is collected from the heart and the blood cells and plasma are separated by centrifugation.
