Basic Equipment

A lab space to handle fish eggs and embryos is available and equipped with stereomicroscopes, incubators and necessary smaller tools. A wider range of high end microscopes are available in the Cell Imaging Core.

High throughput assays are being developed in collaboration with the Screening Unit.

Equipment for Microinjections

Electronic micromanipulator (Injectman NI2, Eppendorf) facilitates precise injection and controlled movement of microinjection needles. This can be used together with Eppendorf Femtojet (air-based system) to inject solutions into embryos, or with Eppendorf CellTram Vario (oil-based system) in cell transplantation studies.

Nanoject II (Drummond Scientific) microinjector is well-suited for quantitative injections into zebrafish embryos. It is easy to use and it is portable, so microinjections can be carried out under different microscopes depending on experimental demands. It can be used various techniques such as in transplantations, transgenesis, CRISPR, microangiography and direct administration of substances into embryos.

These systems can be used either with industrially manufactured microinjection needles or with self-made needles pulled from glass capillary tubes.

Vertical needle-pulling instrument Narishige PB-7 can be used to produce self-made glass capillaries. Programs to generate microinjection needles suitable for liquid injections (such as DNA or RNA) and transplantation are available. Instrument is located at Åbo Akademi (Biology department).

Equipment for Behavioral Studies

DanioVision

DanioVision instrument (Noldus IT) can be used to record and track movements of fish larvae on multi-well plates. This instrument is useful in froexmaple in behavioural and toxicological studies.

In addition, a DanioScope (Noldus IT) software allows measurements of early motility, morphology and cardiovascular physiology of zebrafish embryos from images and movies taken with a stereomicroscope.

Equipment for Zebrafish Breeding

Zebrafish strains can be housed in a recirculating system. The zebrafish core performs care-taking, feeding and health monitoring of the housed fish lines.