Developmental Biology Laboratory

Keywords: animals, developmental biology, EvoDevo (Evolutionary Developmental Biology), germline, mitochondria, electrophoresis, Western Blot, immunofluorescence, fluorescent probes, confocal microscopy.

Research and teaching activities are performed in the Development Biology laboratory, located in via Selmi 3, second floor, room 90. In the laboratory, preparations of biological samples from non-model organisms (vertebrates and invertebrates) are carried out. The tissues, after fixation, dehydration, inclusion, are dissected at the vibratome and incubated with antibodies. Furthermore, immunocytochemical investigations are conducted on cultured cells and embryos ("whole mount"). The samples are also treated with nuclear or organelle-specific dyes (for cell type recognition and for the study of organelle distribution and functionality) and with mounting systems that allow to preserve the fluorescence during the observations under the confocal laser scanning microscope. The specificity of the antibodies used is tested by Western Blot after electrophoretic separation with acrylamide gel (SDS-PAGE) of tissue extracts.

Equipment available in the laboratory

The Development Biology laboratory is equipped with the following instrumentation:

- stove, heating plate, magnetic stirrer, vortex, tilting plate, mechanical roller for WB, pH-meter, technical scale, pipettors, centrifuge.

- instrumentation for SDS-PAGE and Western Blot.

Teaching, training and research activities

In the Development Biology laboratory, undergraduate and Master's degree students carry out curricular and thesis internships. Furthermore, the laboratory contributes to the development of research projects of Italian and foreign PhD students and post-doctoral fellows.

Services and consultancy

None.