First are some stained poplar sections - these are free-hand sections I made with a double-edged razor blade under a dissecting microscope, then stained with very dilute Toluidine Blue. Then I imaged them with a fancy light microscope, 50x magnification. The colors and the symmetry are very pleasing!
Then are the prints that I made using these sections. Before I put the sections in stain, I blotted them onto special paper (nitrocellulose) that binds proteins extremely well. Then I probed the paper with antibodies to my proteins (extensins), and anywhere that shows up black is an area in the poplar stem that is producing those proteins. (I scanned the paper with an amazing scanner at the max resolution - something like 12,000 dpi.) The prints can be compared to the stained sections to make sure exactly where in the stem the protein is showing up. I'm so pleased it worked the first time, and I never have to do this again! (I could if I wanted to, it was pretty fun, but at least I don't have to do it.)
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