Los Vagus

Title: Los Vagus

Description: The organism is Danio rerio at 48 hours post fertilization. This is a whole-mount, live isolated lateral image of the Vagus neurons, which are posteriorly located in the hind brain. The fluorescent protein that is expressed is islet1:GFP, which is excited at 488nm. The image was captured using a 63X water immersion objective. Additionally, the image was taken during a time lapse, where the organism was photographed in consistent 5 minute intervals for 30 cycles (one 5 minute interval= one cycle) in an effort to visually capture neural migration. The embryo was placed in 1.3% low-melt agarose gel to minimize movement, and was submerged in 3mL of fish water solution with 20 drops of 4mg/mL MESAB (anesthetic).

The Vagus neurons play a role in the innervation of the muscles in the heart and gut. This is an image of the developing Vagus.

Alexander Burkard, Student,
Zeiss Observer.Z1 Spinning Disk Confocal microscope with a Axiocam ICc 1 camera. Zen computer application was used for image processing.

Identifier: ttlg-07