Group looks at the dynamic behaviour of chromosome compartments and territories within human cells, using new microscopy suite
Dean Jackson recently brought his many years of microscopy experience to the Biomolecular Sciences Division at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (Umist).
Previously he had spent 21 years at Oxford University's Sir William Dunn School of Pathology where he worked with Professor Peter R Cook in the nuclear structure and function research group.
At Oxford, Dr Jackson's work involved the study of nuclear architecture and its relationship to function, the higher-order structure of chromosomes and the analysis of sites of replication, transcription and repair in cell nuclei.
This cutting edge research is now being extended in Manchester with a brand new microscopy suite that includes the Zeiss LSM 510 Meta.
Dr Jackson's group looks at the dynamic behaviour of chromosome compartments and territories within human cells.
The techniques employed to facilitate these studies involve labelling the sub-components of chromosomes with different coloured markers.
"To establish if chromosome structure dictates the order of S phase DNA synthesis it is necessary to use at least three different coloured markers," he says.
"This allows us to determine the direction of replication, whereas using just two labels it is not possible to resolve order and identify likely roles for chromosome architecture.
In the past, the three labels FITC, Cy3 and Cy5 have been used for this purpose but now, with the LSM 510 Meta, 3 or more colours together with fluorescent proteins can be analysed at the same time." "We are labelling a major replication protein with GFP, the nuclear lamin with RFP and DNA with three other labels," says Jackson.
"With the LSM 510 Meta our combinations of fluorescent markers with overlapping emission spectra can be separated clearly and reliably.
Even though we have only had the system running for a few months it has already simplified our triple label experiments and opens up many new doors for further expanding our research.
The equipment is heavily used for this work and for dynamic live cell imaging. I feel that the powerful software is one of the best image acquisition, analysis and presentation packages available and having worked with microscopes from many suppliers during my career find this Zeiss instrument to have superior optical performance."
