One of the great advantages of CSH Protocols over other online methods sources is that we have access to material from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s cutting edge laboratory courses. November’s issue of CSH Protocols features material from the Molecular Embryology of the Mouse Course (as noted earlier), and the first set of many upcoming protocols from the Proteomics Course.

Course directors Andrew Link and Josh LaBaer have done a stellar job putting together a new laboratory manual based on the course. Proteomics will be out in December, but in the meantime, we’re publishing methods from the manual in advance in CSH Protocols. November’s issue brings a set of seven protocols covering Construction of Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Arrays (NAPPA).

NAPPA differs from other protein array approaches in that proteins are translated in situ on the array surface, removing the need for individual protein purification. From the introduction:

This method uses cell-free extracts that transcribe and translate DNA into proteins which are then captured in situ, thus converting cDNA copies of genes into the desired target proteins. Instead of printing proteins at each feature of the array, the cDNA molecules for the corresponding genes that produce desired proteins are affixed to the array. Chemical treatment of glass slides and DNA isolation can be performed in advance and stored. The plasmid DNA can then be printed to make NAPPA slides, which can be stored dry for use. For experiments, NAPPA slides are expressed followed by detection of proteins and DNA using antibodies and stains.

Protocols are available for preparing slides and cultures, isolating DNA, labeling and arraying DNA, expressing proteins, detecting proteins and detecting DNA.

Heading off this weekend to DC for the 2008 Society for Neuroscience Meeting. Please come by our booth (CSHL Press in booth 105) and say hello. I’ll either be there or wandering the grounds in search of interesting methods for publication.

November’s issue of CSH Protocols continues to expand our coverage of emerging model organisms, with three sets of articles on the Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), Comb Jellies (Ctenophora) and the Blind Mexican Cave Fish (Astyanax mexicanus).

The tomato has obvious agricultural importance as a research system, but beyond that, it has many characteristics such as fleshy fruit, a sympodial shoot and compound leaves, which are lacking in other plant model systems like rice or Arabidopsis. The variety among the thirteen recognized wild tomato species and the differing phenotypes exhibited make it an interesting organism for the study of genetic variation and evolution. Protocols are available for growth, performing crosses, grafting and transformation of tomatoes.

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Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s courses have long been tremendous community resources, training generation after generation of scientists in the latest cutting-edge techniques. The highly competitive nature of the courses means that not everyone who wants to attend can do so, and one of our missions at CSH Protocols is to help disseminate course material to the scientific community at large. The course instructors have been generously providing CSH Protocols with articles based on their lectures and laboratories, some of which you can see collected here.

November’s issue of CSH Protocols features several methods from the renowned Molecular Embryology of the Mouse course. This long-running course (25-plus years) has long been the absolute standard for training mouse biologists and has resulted in three editions of the well-known manual, Manipulating the Mouse Embryo. What’s interesting about the course as of late, is that the focus has shifted away from just the generation of transgenic and knock-out animals, and more towards the analysis of phenotypes in those animals. November’s featured articles present methods for analyzing specific tissues in the mouse.
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