Immunological Techniques using Fish Model - A laboratory Manual

Hello there, immunology teachers of colleges and universities! Are you still struggling to design and develop laboratory exercises to demonstrate concepts of immunology to your undergrad and postgrad students using rabbits, guinea pigs and mice without a good animal house? All your problems are over. Here is an innovative and ‘easy to follow’ laboratory manual which has the procedures of many immunological techniques and assays using fish model. Using fish model is mainly to avoid the constraints of having and maintaining spacious air-conditioned animal house and animals like rabbits, guinea pigs and mice which are traditionally used for immunology laboratory exercises. Fishes have most of the immunological components, mechanisms and molecules found in higher vertebrates like rabbits, guinea pigs and mice though in a simpler style. Hence, fish is as an ideal vertebrate model for teaching and demonstrating the essential immunological concepts. The immunological exercises covered in this manual includes but not restricted to the basic techniques like dissection of lymphoid organs, preparation of leucocytes from these organs, antigen preparation, immunization and bleeding technique, and serum separation and assays like non-specific immune mechanisms like lysozyme activity and production of reactive oxygen by phagocytes, specific immune responses like antibody production, allograft rejection and DTH reaction, expression of immune related genes and vaccination and vaccine efficacy testing. Many of these techniques are being routinely used in institutions where the author served and also in institutions whose faculty fellows underwent training in the large number of training workshops conducted by the author.