Zebrafish eggs are fertilized outside the body making it possible to manipulate the process to advantage. Haploid embryos develop from the female genetic complement only. Any mutation carried by the female will be seen in her haploid offspring. Additionally it is possible to make these haploid embryos diploid by application of pressure or heat shock during early developmental stages. This section provides an overview of these genetic methods.
Detailed procedures follow in a later section.
UV Sperm Sperm is collected and pooled into ice cold Hank's solution as described in Embryo Production By In Vitro Fertilization, page 1. Ice is put in the bottom half of a 10 cm glass petri plate. Sperm is pipetted onto a watch glass sitting on top of the ice taking care not to introduce bubbles. Sperm is irradiated by a Sylvania 18 inch 15W germicidal lamp at 38 cm or 15 inches from the watch glass for 2 minutes with gentle mixing. Use a clean pipette to pipette the sperm into a clean glass tube and kept on ice.