Cx41 microscope

The composition of the earwig diet was determined by analysing the gastrointestinal tract contents as described by Kocarek et al. [15 (link)], and the goal was to assess the possibility of predation on termites. The collected insects were immediately stored in ethanol (75%) to stop the digestion of food within the alimentary tract. In the dissection of these specimens, the sternites of the thorax and abdomen were cut using slender forceps, and the oesophagus, crop, proventriculus, and midgut were removed. The gastrointestinal tracts of three specimens of Spirolabia kaja sp. nov. were removed; one was from a male, and two were from females. Permanent microscopic preparations of the alimentary tract contents were made with Hoyer’s solution [16 (link)]. The slides were examined for visually identifiable fragments of food (animal, plant, and fungal), and these were documented using an Olympus CX41 microscope and a Canon EOS 1100D camera. The proportions of different kinds of foods were not determined due to the limited quantity of material and the predominance of indistinguishable small fragments.

Mouse lungs were fixed overnight in 4% paraformaldehyde before being embedded in paraffin. Slides of paraffin sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and imaged on an Olympus Cx41 microscope and images captured using a Canon Powershot S5IS camera.
BMDC were incubated with exponential phase bacteria labeled with 1 mM of pHrodo (Life Technologies) for 2 h. Fluorescein isothiocyanate phalloidin (Life Technologies) and TO-PRO3 (Life Technologies) were incubated in the presence of 0.2% Triton X-100 prior to fixing in 4% paraformaldehyde and visualization with a Zeiss LSM 510 META scanning confocal microscope