Hi Colin

     We have used fluorescein to trace water movement in wood on our
     confocal. Toluidine blue also works well. One point to note is that
     fluorescein will not fix in the cell wall so to avoid redistribution
     when doing microscopy, section the material dry and mount in immersion
     oil. One problem is that fluorescein emits in the red while toluidine
     emits in the far red. If you have to use a green emitting dye it may
     be difficult to clearly distinguish the dye from the lignin
     autofluorescence which is also predominantly green. We used the lignin
     autofluorescence to visualise the tracheids and used a second channel
     to overlay the red dye signal.

     Cheers - Lloyd

     Lloyd Donaldson
     NZ Forest Research Institute
     PB 3020 Rotorua
     NEW ZEALAND
     email [log in to unmask]


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Fluorescent dye uptake in plants
Author:  Colin Macqueen <[log in to unmask]> at tawa
Date:    12/3/97 2:35 PM


Dear Folks,
        Does anyone have any ideas/experience as to which blue excited
green emitting soluble dyes can be injected into the xylem of growing
plants to visualize transport and distribution as it is taken up.
Cheers, Colin




The Hielander
Colin Macqueen      [log in to unmask]
Confocal Facility   The University of Queensland  Fax +61-7-3365-4522