> Donald O'Malley wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> >     We are trying to stain dead/dying cells in living zebrafish.
> > We would like to do this non-invasively, i.e. by simply incubating
> > the larval fish in the "dead-cell" stain.  We've tried propidium iodide
> > over a range of concentrations and for times from several hours
> > to overnight, all to no avail.  Presumably it can't diffuse into the
> > fish, although we know that some compounds are able to diffuse
> > into the fish.   I realize this is a bit esoteric, but any suggestions
> > would be appreciated.   I also know there are live-dead kits from
> > Molecular Probes, but before we spend hundreds of dollars, I
> > thought I might check first with the imaging community.  (We are
> > gently killing the cells with a low-intensity laser beam; we want
> > to confirm cell death before doing extensive behavioral testing).
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Don

One addition to Jill's suggestions that you may want consider is to also use a
general "all" cell marker so you can locate the individual cells.  A permeant
nuclear stain would be handy but if you don't have UV excitation that would rule
out DAPI or Hoechst.  Depending on which mitochondrial dye you used you could go
with one of our SYTO dyes or perhaps LDS 751.

An alternative could be to use a penetrating membrane probe like FM 1-43 or FM
4-64 to outline the cells.

--
Ian Clements
Technical Assistance Specialist
Molecular Probes Inc