The Waterston Lab at the University of Washington is interested in doing 4D imaging of embryogenesis using strains contributed from the worm community. Our automated lineage software tracks each cell throughout C. elegans embryonic development. The software allows us to gauge reporter expression levels on a cell-by-cell, minute-by-minute basis, and allows the construction of gene expression lineage trees (see references below; also epic.gs.washington.edu). If you have a strain containing a GFP or RFP-tagged gene of interest and would like to find out what the spatio-temporal expression pattern during early embryonic development looks like in detail, we would be willing to cross and image the strain, and generate an expression tree. We ask only that we be able to post the results on our web site and that we and others in the community be able to use the information in further analysis.
In order to be imaged successfully, the strain must satisfy the following:
-the transgene must be integrated into the C. elegans genome
-the fluorescent protein reporter must be either GFP or RFP (or close equivalent)
-the strain must have reporter expression starting no later than the bean stage of embryogenesis
Please get in contact if you are interested in having your strains imaged.
Pete
peteyk (a.t) u.washington.edu
References:
http://genome.cshlp.org/content/22/7/1282.long
http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v5/n8/full/nmeth.1228.html