This high magnification confocal image of a rat cerebellum coronal section was produced by probing the specimen with DRAQ5, Alexa Fluor 488, and Alexa Fluor 568. The two Alexa Fluor dyes were conjugated to secondary antibodies directed against primary chicken anti-NF-H antibodies and rabbit anti-GFAP antibodies in order to label heavy chain neurofilament subunits in neurons (Alexa Fluor 488; green emission) and glial fibrillary acidic protein in astrocytes and certain other astroglia (Alexa Fluor 568; red emission). The nuclear counterstain employed, DRAQ5, was pseudocolored cyan. Images were recorded with a 20x objective using a zoom factor of 1.8 and sequential scanning with the 488-nanometer spectral line of an argon-ion laser, the 543-nanometer line from a green helium-neon laser, and the 633-nanometer line of a red helium-neon laser. During the processing stage, individual image channels were pseudocolored with RGB values corresponding to each of the fluorophore emission spectral profiles unless otherwise noted above. View a larger version of this digital image. |