Immunohistochemical Staining of the Mosquito Ear

Abstract

Immunohistochemistry has played a major role in improving our understanding of the anatomy and function of the nervous system. The use of fluorescent dyes that label different antigens reveals how biological tissues are built and how interactions between cells take place. Obtaining this information is particularly important in the case of the mosquito ear given its highly complex anatomy. This protocol describes an immunohistochemical technique to stain the mosquito ear. The first steps of the procedure include the embedding of the tissue in albumin-gelatin and its sectioning into thin slices to allow antibody penetration. The immunohistochemical procedure can be exploited to detect protein expression and localization by using antibodies specifically raised against the protein of interest or that recognize epitope tags fused to proteins using genome editing methods.