Planarian Ovary Dissection for Ultrastructural Analysis and Antibody Staining

Published: September 10, 2021

doi:

Fengli Guo, Melainia McClain, Xia Zhao, Kexi Yi, Tari Parmely, Jay Unruh, Brian Slaughter, Leonid Kruglyak³, Longhua Guo³, Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado²

¹Stowers Institute for Medical Research, ²Howard Hughes Medical Institute, ³Department of Human Genetics,University of California Los Angeles

Summary

This protocol presents steps taken to dissect ovaries in the freshwater planarians, Schmidtea mediterranea. The dissected ovaries are compatible for antibody immunostaining and ultrastructural analysis with transmission electron microscopy to study the cell biology of the oocytes and somatic cells, providing an imaging depth and quality that were previously inaccessible.

Abstract

Accessibility to germ cells allows the study of germ cell development, meiosis, and recombination. The sexual biotype of the freshwater planarian, Schmidtea mediterranea, is a powerful invertebrate model to study the epigenetic specification of germ cells. Unlike the large number of testis and male germ cells, planarian oocytes are relatively difficult to locate and examine, as there are only two ovaries, each with 5-20 oocytes. Deeper localization within the planarian body and lack of protective epithelial tissues also make it challenging to dissect planarian ovaries directly.

This protocol uses a brief fixation step to facilitate the localization and dissection of planarian ovaries for downstream analysis to overcome these difficulties. The dissected ovary is compatible for ultrastructural examination by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and antibody immunostaining. The dissection technique outlined in this protocol also allows for gene perturbation experiments, in which the ovaries are examined under different RNA interference (RNAi) conditions. Direct access to the intact germ cells in the ovary achieved by this protocol will greatly improve the imaging depth and quality and allow cellular and subcellular interrogation of oocyte biology.

Introduction

Planarian anatomy has been examined by using TEM in many tissues¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵^,⁶. However, little attention has been given to ovaries or oocytes. The paucity of oocyte literature is partly due to the difficulty accessing these cells, leaving the biology of planarian oocytes largely unexplored. Molecular tools have uncovered many regulatory mechanisms of ovary development in the planarians using light or fluorescence microscopy⁷^,⁸^,⁹^,¹⁰^,¹¹^,¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁸^,¹⁹^,²⁰. All these experiments were performed on whole worms or histological sections of whole worms. The antibody staining and in situ hybridization protocols on whole worms involve extensive bleaching, washing, and tissue clearing steps, which are time-consuming and will take several days.

The overall goal of the method described here is to provide accessibility to intact, dissected planarian ovaries and oocytes, which will remove the necessity of bleaching or histological sectioning and shorten the time for washing and tissue clearing in antibody staining and in situ hybridization. The dissected ovaries will also improve probe or antibody penetration and increase imaging depth and quality for light and electron microscopes. Accessibility to the dissected ovaries and oocytes allows cell biology research at cellular and subcellular resolution with whole intact oocytes. A recent study on dissected planarian ovaries characterized planarian oocyte meiosis for the first time with TEM and confocal microscopy²¹. The work provided a comprehensive description of a new phenomenon during meiosis called nuclear envelope vesiculation.

Here, we present the detailed procedures in the dissection of planarian ovaries. A fixation step was sufficient to preserve the ovary cell structure for dissection and downstream manipulation (i.e., processing for TEM and light microscope analysis). Given their similarity in body plans and tissue architecture, this protocol should also be broadly informative for studying oocytes and their nuclei in several other Platyhelminthes species (e.g., the genus of Dugesia or Polycelis). This protocol is likely irrelevant for Macrostomum lignano for their small sizes and almost transparent body architecture, which will allow for direct observation of the ovary and oocytes²²^,²³^,²⁴. The body area containing the ovaries is more optically distinguishable (e.g., darker pigmented or lighter pigmented) in some species (e.g., Dugesia ryukyuensis⁹^,²⁵) than S. mediterranea. Studies in these species can rely less on the guidelines for locating the ovaries in S. mediterranea presented here but take advantage of the fixation and dissection conditions.

Protocol

1. Preparation Prepare worms: feed sexual planarians twice a week with organic liver paste to achieve sexual maturity. NOTE: Generally, such worms are bigger than 1 cm in length and have a gonopore posterior to the pharynx opening. Prepare solutions. Prepare the following reagents: 16% paraformaldehyde (PFA); 50% glutaraldehyde (GA) aqueous solution; N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC); 1x phosphate-buffered saline (PBS): 137 mM NaCl, 2.7 mM KCl, 8 mM Na2HPO4, and 2 mM KH2PO4.</l…

Representative Results

The method presented here has been described by Guo et al.21. The key to successful dissection is to identify the ovary pigmentation and position guides correctly. The strategy of the method is to move from broad positions to a specific location. First, to achieve this, rely on dorsal and ventral pigmentation patterns (Figure 1A,B). Ventral pigmentation, where the ovaries reside, will turn white after 5% NAC treatment and 4% PFA fixation. If the worm …

Discussion

These fixation-based procedures for dissecting planarian ovaries will facilitate the understanding of oocyte meiosis as well as ovary development and regeneration. The sizes of the oocytes and their somatic supportive cells can range from 20 µm to 50 µm. Dissection-based methods will provide accessibility to intact single-ovary cells that sectioning or whole-mount-based methods cannot achieve. This protocol will facilitate the study of intact planarian ovary anatomy and oocyte cell biology at cellular and subce…

Disclosures

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (LK and ASA) and the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation (LHG).

Original data underlying this manuscript can be accessed from the Stowers Original Data Repository at http://www.stowers.org/research/publications/libpb-1628

Materials

16% paraformaldehyde	Electron Microscopy Sciences	15710	EM grade
2% aqueous OsO4	Electron Microscopy Sciences	19152
50% glutaraldehyde	Electron Microscopy Sciences	16320	EM grade
Digital Micrograph	Gatan Inc.		Version 2.33.97.1, TEM data collection
Epon resin	Electron Microscopy Sciences	14120	Embed 812 Kit, liquid, epoxy resin
Ethanol	Ted Pella	19207	Denatured
Hoechst 33342	Thermo Fisher Scientific	H3570
Horse serum	Sigma	H1138
Lead Acetate	Electron Microscopy Sciences	6080564
MilliQ water			reverse-osmosis treated water
N-Acetyl-L-cysteine	Sigma	A7250
Parafilm	sigma	P7793
Prolong Diamond Antifade Mountant	Thermo Fisher Scientific	P36965
Propylene oxide	Electron Microscopy Sciences	75569	EM grade
Proteinase K	Thermo Fisher Scientific	25530049
Toluidine blue O	Electron Microscopy Sciences	92319
Transmission Electron Microscope	FEI		Tecnai G2 Spirit BioTWIN
Uranyl acetate	Electron Microscopy Sciences	541093

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