Use of flatbed transparency scanners in zebrafish research: versatile and economical adjuncts to traditional imaging tools for the Danio rerio laboratory.
Flatbed transparency scanners are typically relegated to routine office tasks, yet they do offer a variety of potentially useful imaging tools for the zebrafish laboratory. These include motility screens, oocyte maturation and egg activation assays as well as counting and measuring tasks. When coupled with Macroscheduler (http://www.mjtnet.com) and ImageJ (http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij), the scanner becomes a stable platform for imaging large arrays of zebrafish oocytes, embryos, larvae, and adults. Such large arrays are a prerequisite to the development of high-throughput screens for small molecules as potential therapeutic drugs in the treatment of many diseases including cancer and epilepsy. Thus the scanner may have a role in adapting zebrafish to future drug and mutagenesis screening. In this chapter, some of the uses of scanners are outlined to bring attention to the potentials of this simple-to-use, flexible, inexpensive device for the zebrafish research community.
Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
Charles A
CA
Lessman
Michael R
MR
Taylor
Wilda
W
Orisme
Ethan A
EA
Carver
D000818:Animals; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000196:embryology