Re: fluorescent Ab counterstain for chicken somites (lectins?)

Posted by G. Esteban Fernandez on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/fluorescent-Ab-counterstain-for-chicken-somites-lectins-tp1130451p1143176.html

Vector Labs sells lectin kits.

-Esteban

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 1:36 PM, Carl Boswell <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Matthew,
As a point of clarification, lectins will bind specific sequences of sugars on glycoproteins.  As such, identical proteins with different glyco-residues will have different lectin binding properties.  Given that, you may need to do what I had to do years ago, and that was sample a bunch of different lectins to see what works.  When  lectin chemistry was new, one could find samplers with small amounts of several lectins to test.  Now, I don't see any.  Sigma Chemical has many lectins, though I don't know how many have been fluorescently tagged.  Molecular Probes is another source of labelled lectins.
Good luck,
Carl

Carl A. Boswell, Ph.D.
Molecular and Cellular Biology
University of Arizona
520-954-7053
FAX [phone]
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carol Heckman" <[hidden email]>

To: <[hidden email]>

Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: fluorescent Ab counterstain for chicken somites (lectins?)

Matthew-
I don't seen any reason why the wheat germ agglutinin labels wouldn't work. The cell membrane protein structure might be highly conserved between mouse and chicken.
Carol
________________________________________
From: Confocal Microscopy List [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Matthew Smith [[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 9:12 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: fluorescent Ab counterstain for chicken somites (lectins?)

hi.

i'm interested in picking up a quick, simple and fairly affordable fluorescent counterstain for viewing cell morphology in antibody labeled sections of chicken embryos.  from what i can put together, some sort of lectin would likely do the job, but i'm having a hard time finding material with lectin labels used in the chicken embryo.  i've seen some papers with nice wheat germ agglutinin labels in similar staged somites of mice.  i primarily need this as an Ab counterstain, but if i could get something that would work live as well, that would be great.  (i've got a collection of membrane labels for live imaging, but more options are always nice.)

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thank you,  matthew

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--
G. Esteban Fernandez, Ph.D.
Associate Director
Molecular Cytology Core Facility
University of Missouri
120 Bond Life Sciences Center
Columbia, MO  65211

http://www.biotech.missouri.edu/mcc/

573-882-4895
573-884-9395 fax