[Cnidaria] identifying cells in Nematostella In-situ experiment.

[wintere at post.tau.ac.il]

Hi Dror
Its very difficult to say- have you thought of TEM using immunogold?  
Or even just doing really thin sections (1 microns) ? The cnidarian  
nerve net is usually at the base of the tissue layers in close  
proximity to the mesoglea...with some processes entering the ecto/endo  
tissue layers. Also keep in mind that there are what we term  
neuromuscular cells that may also be stained by the same markers
Hope that you succeed as it will be a good step forward in the study  
of these organisms
Esti

Dr. E Kramarsky-Winter
Dept of Zoology
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv Israel 69978
tel 6409809

Quoting "Dror Hilman" <dror.hilman at mail.huji.ac.il>:

> Dear all,
> I need some help to identify cells in Nematostella.
> I recently performed whole-mount In-situ hybridization of Nematostella
> adult (polyp).
> The probe for the hybridization was the Nematostella ortholog for
> neuronal - elav gene, a RNA binding protein, that used as neuronal
> marker in mammals.
> The color substrate is NBT-BCIP.
> I have got a nice staining of the tentacles and the mouth (attached picture).
> After the hybridization, I made cryo-section of the tissue, and I am
> not sure about the identity of the cells that were stained.
> Can you help me identify the cells - are they neurons?
>
> Dror Hilman,
> Hebrew University,
> Dept. of cell and animal biology,
> Jerusalem, Israel
>