Bio-technology Products

Creative Biolabs offers a full array of custom in situ hybridization (ISH) service from probe design, tissue acquisition to expert interpretation of gene expression results.
ISH uses a labeled complementary DNA or RNA probe to localize a specific RNA sequence in a portion or section of tissue (in situ). RNA ISH is used to measure and localize mRNAs and other transcripts within tissue sections or whole mounts. For RNA ISH, sample cells and tissues are usually treated to fix the target transcripts in place and to increase access of the probe. The probe is either a labeled complementary DNA (oligoprobe) or a complementary RNA (riboprobe). [Note that riboprobes are much more sensitive than oligoprobes and actually better than a cocktail of oligoprobes. An oligoprobe usually incorporates 1~2 labeling molecules for each oligoprobe at one or both ends, while a riboprobe can incorporate 20 to 100 labeling molecules.] During ISH, a probe hybridizes to the target sequence at elevated temperature, and then the excess probe is washed away (after prior hydrolysis using RNase in the case of un-hybridized, excess RNA probe). Solution parameters such as temperature, salt and/or detergent concentration can be manipulated to remove any non-identical interactions (i.e. only exact sequence matches will remain bound). Then, the probe that was labeled with either radio-, fluorescent- or antigen-labeled bases (e.g. digoxigenin) is localized and quantitated in the tissue using either autoradiography, fluorescence microscopy or immunohistochemistry, respectively. ISH can also use two or more probes, labeled with radioactivity or the other non-radioactive labels, to simultaneously detect two or more transcripts.