Quantitative analysis of protein expression to study lineage specification in mouse preimplantation embryos Journal Article


Authors: Saiz, N.; Kang, M.; Schrode, N.; Lou, X.; Hadjantonakis, A. K.
Article Title: Quantitative analysis of protein expression to study lineage specification in mouse preimplantation embryos
Abstract: This protocol presents a method to perform quantitative, single-cell in situ analyses of protein expression to study lineage specification in mouse preimplantation embryos. The procedures necessary for embryo collection, immunofluorescence, imaging on a confocal microscope, and image segmentation and analysis are described. This method allows quantitation of the expression of multiple nuclear markers and the spatial (XYZ) coordinates of all cells in the embryo. It takes advantage of MINS, an image segmentation software tool specifically developed for the analysis of confocal images of preimplantation embryos and embryonic stem cell (ESC) colonies. MINS carries out unsupervised nuclear segmentation across the X, Y and Z dimensions, and produces information on cell position in three-dimensional space, as well as nuclear fluorescence levels for all channels with minimal user input. While this protocol has been optimized for the analysis of images of preimplantation stage mouse embryos, it can easily be adapted to the analysis of any other samples exhibiting a good signal-to-noise ratio and where high nuclear density poses a hurdle to image segmentation (e.g., expression analysis of embryonic stem cell (ESC) colonies, differentiating cells in culture, embryos of other species or stages, etc.). © 2016 Journal of Visualized Experiments.
Keywords: image analysis; developmental biology; primitive endoderm; single-cell analysis; pluripotency; mouse blastocyst; issue 108; quantitative immunofluorescence
Journal Title: Journal of Visualized Experiments
Volume: 2016
Issue: 108
ISSN: 1940-087X
Publisher: MYJoVE Corporation  
Date Published: 2016-02-22
Start Page: e53654
Language: English
DOI: 10.3791/53654
PROVIDER: scopus
PUBMED: 26967230
PMCID: PMC4828170
DOI/URL:
Notes: Article -- Export Date: 4 April 2016 -- Source: Scopus
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MSK Authors
  1. Xinghua Lou
    7 Lou
  2. Min Jung Kang
    12 Kang
  3. Nadine Schrode
    10 Schrode