CELL MIGRATION ANALYSIS

Some craniofacial tissues, particularly cranial neural crest, are highly migratory.
Therefore it may be of interest to assess the influence of a transgene on the migratory
properties of a craniofacial cell population. The vital dye, DiI, has been used extensively
to document migratory patterns of craniofacial neural crest (e.g., see ref. 17).
DiI is injected directly into individual cells in embryos ex vivo or in organ culture. The
location of the dye is then monitored in frozen sections by epifluorescence or confocal
microscopy. A recent innovation in the visualization of DiI makes use of polyethylene
glycol as an embedding medium, which preserves the location of DiI and provides
single cell resolution