The University of British Columbia

6 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Neuroscience

Detection of Neuritic Plaques in Alzheimer's Disease Mouse Model

Philip T.T. Ly^*1, Fang Cai^*1, Weihong Song¹

¹Department of Neuroscience, The University of British Columbia

One of the pathological characteristics of AD is the formation of Amyloid β protein positive neuritic plaques. In this protocol we describe two methods to detect neuritic plaques in transgenic AD model mice: immunohistochemical detection using the ABC and DAB method and fluorescent detection using thioflavin S staining method.

Neuroscience

Morris Water Maze Test for Learning and Memory Deficits in Alzheimer's Disease Model Mice

Kelley Bromley-Brits^*1, Yu Deng^*1, Weihong Song¹

¹Department of Psychiatry, Brain Research Center, University of British Columbia

The Morris Water Maze is a behavioral task to test hippocampal-dependent learning and memory. It has been widely used in the study of neurobiology, neuropharmacology and neurocognitive disorders in rodent models.

Environment

Automated Gel Size Selection to Improve the Quality of Next-generation Sequencing Libraries Prepared from Environmental Water Samples

Miguel I. Uyaguari-Diaz¹, Jared R. Slobodan², Matthew J. Nesbitt², Matthew A. Croxen³, Judith Isaac-Renton^1,3, Natalie A. Prystajecky^1,3, Patrick Tang^1,3

¹Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The University of British Columbia, ²Coastal Genomics, ³British Columbia Public Health Microbiology and Reference Laboratory

This manuscript describes an automated gel size selection approach for purifying DNA fragments for next-generation sequencing. The Ranger Technology provides complete automation of the entire process of agarose gel loading, electrophoretic analysis, and recovery of targeted DNA fragments allowing for high-throughput and high quality next-generation sequencing libraries.

Developmental Biology

In Vitro Reconstitution of Spatial Cell Contact Patterns with Isolated Caenorhabditis elegans Embryo Blastomeres and Adhesive Polystyrene Beads

Christina Rou Hsu^1,2, Rain Xiong^1,2, Kenji Sugioka^1,2

¹Department of Zoology, The University of British Columbia, ²Life Sciences Institute, The University of British Columbia

Tissue complexities of multicellular systems confound the identification of causal relationship between extracellular cues and individual cellular behaviors. Here, we present a method to study the direct link between contact-dependent cues and division axes using C. elegans embryo blastomeres and adhesive polystyrene beads.

Biology

Imaging Molecular Adhesion in Cell Rolling by Adhesion Footprint Assay

Scott Minh An^*1,2, Seong Ho Kim^*1, Vanessa J. White^*1,2, Adam B. Yasunaga^*1,2, Kathleen M. McMahon², Yousif Murad^1,3, Isaac T. S. Li^1,2

¹Department of Chemistry, The University of British Columbia, ²Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of British Columbia, ³Faculty of Medicine, The University of British Columbia

This protocol presents the experimental procedures to perform the adhesion footprint assay to image the adhesion events during fast cell rolling adhesion.

Chemistry

Hydrogen Production and Utilization in a Membrane Reactor

Alexandra R. Rousseau^*1, Mia D. Stankovic^*2, Curtis P. Berlinguette^1,2,3,4

¹Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The University of British Columbia, ²Department of Chemistry, The University of British Columbia, ³Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, The University of British Columbia, ⁴Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)

Membrane reactors enable hydrogenation in ambient conditions without direct H₂ input. We can track the hydrogen production and utilization in these systems using atmospheric mass spectrometry (atm-MS) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS).