Journal of Student Research 2013

48

Journal of Student Research

When examined by microscopy, the murine splenocytes exposed to the probe showed strong intranuclear punctate staining, further substantiating probe fidelity. A limited supply of these cells and the inability to maintain freshly-harvested cells in culture for several days precluded using this cell source as a mainstay for our study. Figure 2

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Figure 2: Telomere labeling in whole murine splenocytes. A) Flow cytometry analysis shows baseline separation of mock control cells in blue and PNA hybridized cells in pink, with mean fluorescence intensity values of 1.2 and 17.2, respectively. B) A photomicrograph of a single whole splenocyte hybridized with PNA probe is shown on the right. The punctate green nuclear staining identifies telomeres.

Figure 3

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Figure 3: Telomere labeling in purified HFF-1 cell nuclei. A) Flow cytometry analysis shows signal from mock control nuclei in blue and PNA-hybridized nuclei in pink. The mean fluorescence intensity values of R1 and R2 regions are 2.6 and 45.6, respectively. B) A photomicrograph of a representative HFF-1 nucleus hybridized with probe is shown on the right (DIC/green fluorescence overlay).