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Research
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Facilities
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| Facilities for plant growth include over 2,200 m2 of glasshouse space, eight controlled environmental rooms (>700 m2 ), numerous smaller growth chambers and a tissue culture facility. Each growth room is individually controlled for temperature and humidity as well as day length. The tissue culture facility provides sterile working areas for cell and tissue transfer and three growthrooms that are again individually controllable for temperature and light conditions. This allows us to utilise the facility for a range of cell and callus cultures for a variety of species. The plant growth facility also provides transformation and genotyping services for Arabidopsis. Please contact Steve Millam for further details of plant growth facilities and protocols. |  |
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| The Biochemistry facility has two Dionex HPLC (ion chromatography) instruments, operated and maintained by a dedicated technician and supervised by Professor Steve Fry. The first is used extensively for the analysis of carbohydrates and uses pulsed amperometric detection. This machine has been used mostly to identify plant cell wall components but also other sugars and metabolites. It has an autosampler and is capable of producing complex gradients of up to four eluents. Recently, a Joint Infrastructure Funding grant has enabled the purchase of a new instrument featuring temperature controlled autosampler and column compartments, five available detection systems (refractive index, conductivity, pulsed amperometry, UV/visible diode array and fluorescence) and a fraction collector. Data analysis is supported Chromeleon software. Methods have been developed for measurement of a range of metabolites including S-nitroso-glutathione (GSNO), produced as a response of plant cells to pathogens, plant cell wall phenolic compounds and sugar nucleotides. The machine is extremely versatile and can be adapted to underpin a range of studies. The facility also includes high voltage paper electrophoresis and chromatography, and instruments for detection of radioactively labelled metabolites. Please contact Steve Fry for further details. |  |
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| The Imaging facility has a confocal laser scanning microcope (CLSM), microscope workstation and three PC workstations for image analysis and processing. The CLSM is a BioRad Radiance 2100 Rainbow mounted on an inverted Nikon 2000E microscope. It is equipped with four lasers providing excitation wavelengths between 405 and 638 nm, has 3 detector channels and spectral analysis capability. The microscope workstation is an inverted Nikon 2000U microscope equipped with a Till monochromator light source for fluorescence microscopy, a Nikon 12 MB DXM 1200F Digital camera, and a Hammamatsu Orca ER low light cooled CCD. Both Nikon microscopes have brightfield, fluorescence, DIC and phase-contrast optics. Three PC Workstations run Compix Imaging Systems and Bitplane Imaris software are used for image analysis. Please contact Nick Read for access to the imaging facilities. |
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The Electron Microscope lab of School of Biological Sciences has a Hitachi 4700 II cold Field-emission Scanning Electron Microscope equipped with a Gatan Alto cryo-preparation system for high-resolution Low-temperature SEM and a YAG scintillator Back-scattered electron detector capable of imaging 5nm immunogold labels. The Philips (FEI) CM120 Biotwin transmission electron microscope is a high-contrast biological instrument complemented by a range of specimen preparation equipment including a Leica EMPact High-Pressure freezer, a Leica AFS automatic freeze-substitution system, Reichert ultramicrotomes with an FCS cryo-ultramicrotomy system and an Oxford cryo-specimen holder. An Edwards high-vacuum coating unit is available for evaporative coating and replication of specimens with metals and carbon. Other equipment includes an EmScope sputter coater, Polaron critical point drier, and compound and stereo light microscopes. BioSEM is located in the Daniel Rutherford Building at King's Buildings lab G04 (entrance 4, Mayfield Road). |
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Other support facilities
within the School of Biological Sciences and the University include:
DNA sequencing
and genotyping with ABI 3100 and 3730 sequencing machines. Operates
a 1-2 day turnaround accepting either sequencing or genotyping reactions
or DNA template and primers. Also provides automated colony picking, DNA isolation and bioinformatic analysis.
Edinburgh Protein Interaction
Centre (EPIC) for mass spectrometry, protein sequencing, 2D
gel electrophoresis and robotics.
The Centre for Optical Instrumentation Laboratory (COIL) containing
STORM phosphorimager, confocal microscope, flowcytometer, optical
deconvolution microscopy and other state-of-the-art imaging technology.
Collaborative Optical Sprectroscopy,
Micromanipulation and Imaging Centre (COSMIC), offering advanced
cell imagining and micro-manipulation techniques.
Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions (CSEC), offering expertise
and growth conditions at the extremes of temperatures, pressure, electric fields,
etc.
Scottish Centre for Genomic Technology
and Informatics (scGTI), providing microarray and proteomics
facilities and bioinformatics support.
Edinburgh
Centre for Bioinformatics