"Vacuum-assisted staining": a simple and efficient method for screening in Drosophila.

The constantly growing number of genetic tools rapidly increases possibilities for various screens in different model organisms and calls for new methods facilitating screen performance. In particular, screening procedures involving fixation and staining of samples are difficult to perform at a genome-wide scale. The time-consuming task to generate these samples makes such screens less attractive. Here, we describe the use of multi-well filter plates for high throughput labellings of different Drosophila organs and zebrafish embryos. Our inexpensive vacuum-assisted staining protocol minimises the risk of sample loss, reduces the amount of staining reagents and drastically decreases labour and repetitive work. The simple handling of the system and the commercial availability of its components makes this method easily applicable to every laboratory.