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Published November 2005 | Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

Quantum Dots Are Powerful Multipurpose Vital Labeling Agents in Zebrafish Embryos

Abstract

Recently, inorganic fluorescent contrast agents composed of semiconductor materials have been introduced to biological imaging approaches. These so-called quantum dots provide unique and promising properties unreached by organic fluorophores, but their use as contrast agents within live organisms has been limited, probably due in part to concerns about their in vivo tolerance. Using transparent zebrafish embryos, we challenged quantum dots with a series of intravital imaging problems. We show that quantum dots provide a high fluorescent yield within targeted tissues, possess immense photostability, can be targeted to specific subcellular compartments, remain within targeted cells as lineage tracers, are easily separable from conventional organic fluorescent dyes, and are fixable, allowing them to be used in combination with immunohistochemistry after live recordings. Thus, quantum dots combine the specific advantages of different organic fluorescent contrast agents and promise to become the first fluorophore feasible for long-lasting intravital time-lapse studies. Finally, we show by colabeling blood vessels of the vasculature and major axon tracts of the nervous system that, for establishing these networks, the same guidance cues might be used in some body parts, whereas in others, both networks appear to develop independently from one another. Thus, the bright fluorescence of quantum dots will help to unravel many open questions in the fields of embryology, cell biology, as well as phenotyping and disease diagnosis.

Additional Information

© 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. Received 9 February 2005; Revised 22 April 2005; Accepted 16 June 2005. We thank Aura Keeter and Petra Hammerl for excellent animal care. We thank Thomas Lisse for critically reading the manuscript. We thank all the members of our laboratories as well as the Wurst and Bally-Cuif laboratories for discussion and helpful suggestions. We also thank Shuo Lin for providing us with the transgenic zebrafish gata1: gfp 781-strain and Hitoshi Okamoto and Laure Bally-Cuif for supplying us with the isl1:gfp transgenic zebrafish line. An expression construct containing the histon2B:mRFP fusion was kindly provided by Sean G. Megason.

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August 22, 2023
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