Fig. 3

Squash preparation of VNC provided better clarity of synaptic junctions over whole mount preparation. Confocal images of single optical sections from the VNCs of third instar larvae obtained from whole mount (a, c) and squash (b, d) preparations stained with Bruchpilot antibody. a, b Represents VNC at ×1 zoom, while (c, d) represents neuromere hemisegment at ×3.6 zoom. The squash preparations revealed sharper and better clarity images of synaptic junctions (b, d) as compared to whole mount (a, c). Magnification ×40 oil objective, N.A. = 1.3; Scale bars: a, b 50 µm, c, d 10 µm. The images presented here have been consistently observed in more than 10 VNC preparations in each case