Technology

• The facility holds a microscopy unit containing four Leica M80 stereomicroscopes, each provided with an Eppendorf Femtojet injector and WPI micromanipulator. These microscopes can be used for phenotyping, sorting and injection of zebrafish embryos/larvae. Furthermore, this unit contains a Leica M165FC and a Nikon SMZ18 fluorescence stereomicroscope provided with a sensitive Leica DF450C and DS-Qi camera respectively, suitable for both fluorescent and color imaging and two Zeiss Axio Observer inverted microscopes with automated time-lapse functionalities and 3D-deconvolution and apotome modules. For whole embryo confocal imaging, a Leica Super-zoom 3D confocal microscope is available.
• The facility contains an immunohistochemical unit including a Micron HM355S Microtome with water bath and a Leica DM2000 microscope with camera to image zebrafish sections.
• For rapid non-destructive genotyping of live zebrafish embryos, a Zebrafish Embryonic Genotyper (ZEG) device and sequencing unit is available.
• Basic molecular techniques including morpholino-mediated gene knockdown, CRISPR/Cas mediated gene knock-out and knock-in, transgenesis using TOL2 and I-SceI constructs, whole mount in situ hybridization, qPCR and RNAseq-based gene-expression analysis and different (immuno)staining and imaging methods have been optimized and are frequently used in the facility.
• Protocols are centrally archived and are therefore easily accessible for researchers.
• The zebrafish facility, in its present form, has a capacity of about 17000 adult fish, which are housed in 6 “semi-closed” recirculating systems (ZebTEC and WTU systems, Tecniplast) that provide automatic water circulation, automatic monitoring and displaying of the most important water quality parameters such as temperature, pH and conductivity