When the gastric mucus is removed from the surface epithelium, small pits, called foveolae gastricae, may be observed with a magnifying glass.
The mucus plume was allowed to grow for 45 min, the loose mucus was removed and the thickness was measured before the apical buffer was replaced with the same buffer containing 3% DSS or 3% Dextran.
The coral samples were first rinsed with sterilised seawater (0.22 µm filtered and autoclaved) to remove all loosely associated microbes, after which the coral tissue and associated mucus was removed by airbrushing, using sterile equipment between all samples.
To enhance VCC interaction with mucosal colon surface, the layer of mucus was removed by incubation in a mucolytic solution containing papain (5 U/100 ml) plus L-cysteine (5 mM) [27], [28], for 25 min. The luminal mucolytic containing solution was then substituted with Krebs solution 5 min prior the addition of the toxin.
The intestines were opened lengthwise, and the excess mucus was removed.
Once daily, medium was changed and excess mucus was removed by washing with a micropipette.
To reduce the interference of mucus production with the production of cytokines, mucus was removed from ALI cultures prior to simulation by gentle washing with PBS.
Mucus was removed from the gills with forceps before preparing the disks; the tissue disks were flushed and kept in FSW until use.
The ETT piece was then moved to a new tube containing 30 mL of PBS, washed by vortexing and if needed repeatedly washed until all visual mucus was removed.
This provides a uniform thin-layer (almost monolayer) of approximately 80000 cells in a convenient 1 cm disk on the slide, which is ideally suited to automated reading, as many of the problems which have plagued automated reading, such as drying artefacts, clumps of cells and obscuring blood and mucus, are removed.
