A MULTIWELL VERSION OF IN-SITU HYBRIDIZATION ON WHOLE-MOUNT EMBRYOS OF CAENORHABDITIS-ELEGANS

We report an efficient procedure for in situ hybridization with a mult i-well format on Caenorhabditis elegans embryos for large scale screen ing of gene expression patterns in this organism, Each hybridization w ell contains embryos at various stages throughout embryogenesis. The v alidity of the method was confirmed through results with control genes whose expression patterns have been reported; glp-1 in very early emb ryos, myo-2 in pharyngeal muscle and unc-54 in body wall muscle, Sever al collagen genes and a pepsinogen gene were also examined to establis h a set of lineage-specific markers. As a pilot project, we examined s imilar to 100 unique cDNA species classified by our cDNA project, find ing that similar to 10% of the cDNA groups were expressed in specific cells and at specific stages.