Lab day 2

Day 2 - Friday, May 15, 2009

Today, I did micro injection again. This time, I injected GFP (Green Florescence Protein which make the embryo glow in the dark) for some of the embryo and concentrated Phenol Red (which only stains the yolk red for temporary moment for training purposes). I collected the fish roe myself. This time I managed to inject them successfully although I was pretty sure that some of the embryo were destroyed again. But it was pretty cool to see the ball of cells glow in the dark, hehehehe.....

Three to Four hours after the injection, I learned how to separate the cell mass from the yolk. It was very very difficult. I had to break the corion first to release the embryo and then separating the cell mass from the yolk but every time I break the corion, the yolk and the cell mass were squizzed out of the egg and were mixed together. In the end, I only managed to isolate half of the cell mass from eight embryos. The rest of the embryos were destroyed in faint. I guess I have to practiced more.

Yesterday embryos has developed well although some of them were dead. I could see the embryo squirming under the microscope.

After that, I supposed to learn how to do Western Blot, a technique to detect a specific protein. But my mentor was engrossed in dissecting his fish and by the time he finish, we didn't have enough time to do Western Blot. I ended up joining another group on doing PCR... Sigh.... At this present moment I still have not started my project yet....