• Question: do you ever use gene probes in your work?

    Asked by theapo0408 to Alberto on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Alberto Lapedriza

      Alberto Lapedriza answered on 20 Jun 2013:


      That’s a very interesting (and smart) question!

      As you may have read in my profile, I’m interested in understanding the genes that regulate melanocyte (black pigment cells) development in zebrafish embryos. One of the main tools I use for that is to detect which genes are active or inactive in the melanocytes at different developmental stages in the embryo. To detect if a gene is active in a cell we use a technique called “in situ hybridisation”. With this technique we are trying to measure the presence of messenger RNA (mRNA) of our gene of interest in the cell. The messenger RNA is the molecule that transports the genetic information stored in the DNA inside the nucleus to the cytoplasm to create a protein, which is the molecule that carries out a determinate function in the cell. In order to detect the mRNA, we have to build a nucleic acid molecule that binds to it. And this nucleic acid (the probe) is usually labelled with a substance that we can detect by fluorescence or colour staining. Therefore, every place where we detect fluorescence or a colour signal is a cell where our gene of interest is active.

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