Federal Environment Agency

2 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Immunology and Infection

Flow Cytometric Analysis of Particle-bound Bet v 1 Allergen in PM10

Katrin Süring¹, Sabine Bach¹, Conny Höflich¹, Wolfgang Straff¹

¹Environmental Medicine and Health Effects Assessment, Federal Environment Agency

Here, we present a protocol to quantify allergen-loaded particles by flow cytometry. Ambient particulate matter particles may act as carriers of adsorbed allergens. We show here that flow cytometry, a method widely used to characterize suspended solids >0.5 µm in diameter, can be used to measure these allergen-loaded particles.

Biology

Laboratory Protocol for Genetic Gut Content Analyses of Aquatic Macroinvertebrates Using Group-specific rDNA Primers

Meike Koester^1,2, René Gergs^1,3

¹Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Koblenz-Landau, ²Institute of Integrated Natural Sciences, University of Koblenz-Landau, ³IV 2.5 (Trace Analysis, Artificial Pond and stream system), Federal Environment Agency

Most common gut content analyses of macroinvertebrates are visual. Requiring intense knowledge about morphological diversity of prey organisms, they miss soft bodied prey and, due to strong comminution of prey, are nearly impossible for some organisms, including amphipods. We provide detailed, novel genetic approaches for macroinvertebrate prey identification in the diet of amphipods.