Re: Syto dyes for plant nuclei in living cells

Posted by Glen MacDonald-2 on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Syto-dyes-for-plant-nuclei-in-living-cells-tp592149p592158.html

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I only used the red Sytos once on live brain slices. The red Syto  
dyes seem to be lipophilic and wander through the intracellular  
membrane compartments on their way to the nucleus.  You have to wait  
for them to appear in the nuclei after staining.

Glen
On May 8, 2008, at 7:11 AM, Alison North wrote:

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>
> Hi John and Tobias,
>
> This may be a completely unhelpful response because I was not  
> working on plants and I was looking for dyes in the red/far red  
> range, not blue. However, a few years ago I tested a whole range of  
> the red Syto dyes to try to use them to follow cell division using  
> live cell imaging (together with a GFP construct) and I found  
> something very interesting with Syto 61.  Although I had the same  
> problem as Tobias when I imaged through Texas Red filter sets -  
> i.e. the mitochondria obscured the nuclear signal - I found that if  
> I acquired through the far red (Cy5) filters the signal was now  
> predominantly nuclear.  The longer I left it, the more the nuclear  
> signal seemed to intensify while the remaining mitochondrial signal  
> soon bleached away. I called Mol. Probes to ask them about this and  
> they said that the dye becomes red-shifted when it's highly  
> concentrated - which fits with the fact that the mitotic cells were  
> brightest.  Anyway, unlike most of the nuclear dyes it didn't  
> affect cell division so I could image away for hours/days.
>
> One slight problem - the signal and localisation appeared to be  
> highly cell specific.  It was great in MDCK cells but I seem to  
> remember I couldn't get the same effect in HeLas.  Still - might be  
> worth a shot if a far red dye would do?
>
> Best wishes,
> Alison
>
>
> Tobias Baskin wrote:
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>> John,
>>         One or two years ago, we got a group of syto dyes for this  
>> very purpose, imaging in arabidopsis roots. We were hoping to  
>> image DNA along with a GFP reporter and therefore we tested sytos  
>> that have long wavelength emission (we were working on confocal,  
>> without ability to do uv excitation). None of them worked for us.  
>> They tended to be either toxic or dim. The other thing we noticed  
>> was that because the cells are crammed with mitochondria that move  
>> all over the place, it was difficult to follow nuclear DNA against  
>> this hive of mitochondrial motion. But we never tested blue ones.
>>         Good luck,
>>                 Tobias
>>> Search the CONFOCAL archive at http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/ 
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>>>
>>> Do any of the plant biologists out there have experience using  
>>> the Syto dyes from Molecular Probes to stain nuclei of living  
>>> cells.  In particular, they list 5 different dyes in the blue  
>>> emission range (Syto 40-45).  Syto 42 looks good to me on paper.  
>>> What do you think.  Thanks, John.
>>> --
>>> Runions signature
>>> *********************************
>>> C. John Runions, Ph.D.
>>> School of Life Sciences
>>> Oxford Brookes University
>>> Oxford, UK
>>> OX3 0BP
>>>
>>> email:  [hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>
>>> phone: +44 (0) 1865 483 964
>>> Runions' lab web site <http://www.brookes.ac.uk/lifesci/runions/ 
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>> --
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>
> --
> Alison J. North, Ph.D.,
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