Here We Go, Here We 3C Again
Welcome Back Fellow Fish Friends,
Is it a mushroom? Is it an amoeba? No, its a fish cookie. Here in the lab, we just love fish so much that we can't help but bring our work home with us. Well maybe not actually bring it home, but we always have fish on the brain.
Weekly Updates:
This week begins week 6 of the 10 week summer research for the Weicksel Lab.
On Monday, the fish were mated so we could collect embryos. This time we collected 1,726 embryos!!! Yes, you read that right, 1,726 embryos. All those embryos kept us busy counting them for what seemed like forever. After they were counted and reached 4 hours post fertilization we fixed them for 3C.
Tuesday, we started the 3C 4 day protocol again. Day 1 was our chemical adding day, better known as digestion day. Add a chemical, spin, add another chemical spin, and again, and again. It makes us feel like Oprah, you get a chemical and you get a chemical. We then let these tubes incubate all night long.
On Wednesday, we began the ligation day aka day 2 of the 3C protocol. If you remember from the last blog update, this day involved a 4 hour incubation that feels like forever. We then added some proteinase K and incubated the tubes overnight.
Thursday began day 3 of the protocol. This is the day where we do our phenol chloroform wash of our DNA, so that we can get the nucleic acids out of our samples. The phenol is always an interesting experience because it is a dangerous chemical and it smells quite awful. We then proceed to an ethanol precipitation so that we can precipitate the nucleic acids for an easier collection. After we finish, we let them sit in the -20 freezer for the night.
On Friday, we finished our last day of the 3C protocol by finishing the rest of the ethanol precipitation. Then we took our samples to the nano drop to see how much DNA we had. The nano drop gave us some great news because, WE HAD DNA!!!!! The peaks of DNA appeared and we got numbers more towards what we were expecting, instead of the very minimal amounts we had last time. Then we went over to Dr. Wan's house for a little PC summer research cookout. A bunch of the labs came and we feasted on some asian chicken wings (which are very very yummy).
As always thanks for swimming. Keeps those fins peeled for next weeks blog update. If you have any comments, questions, or concerns head over to the contact page.
Swim By Again Soon,
The Weicksel Lab
