Dil and DiO Confocal Imaging of Chicken Embryos

Extract

In my research, I am interested in understanding cellular morphogenetic events in early somitic myogenesis in the chicken embryo, and much of this work involves viewing fluorescently labeled cells in embryonic tissues. For this work, I am using 0.2% (weight/volume in 100% tetraglycol (Sigma)) concentrations of dil (1,1', di-octadecyl-3,3,3',3',-tetramethylindocarbocyanine perchlorate) and diO (3, 3'-dioctadecyloxacarbocyanine perchlorate) to focally label small areas (approximately 10 cells) of the epithelial somite known as the dermomyotome.