Mouse Intestine Tissue

Phallotoxins are peptides isolated from the toxic Amanita phalloides mushroom that bind filamentous actin. A phallotoxin, phalloidin, conjugated to Alexa Fluor 568 was employed to target the F-actin in the mouse intestine tissue sample featured in the digital image above. Alexa Fluor 350 conjugated to the lectin wheat germ agglutinin was also utilized to label the specimen. Cell nuclei were targeted with the popular nucleic acid stain SYTOX Green. Images were recorded in grayscale with a 12-bit digital camera coupled to either a Nikon E-600 or Eclipse 80i microscope equipped with bandpass emission fluorescence filter optical blocks. During the processing stage, individual image channels were pseudocolored with RGB values corresponding to each of the fluorophore emission spectral profiles.