In situ hybridization (ISH) in preparasitic and parasitic stages of the plant-parasitic nematode Meloidogyne spp

The spatio-temporal expression pattern of a gene provides important indications to better understand its biological function. In situ hybridization (ISH) uses a labeled complementary single-stranded RNA or DNA probe to localize gene transcripts in a whole organism, a whole organ or a section of tissue. We adapted the ISH technique to the plant parasite Meloidogyne spp. (root-knot nematode) to visualize RNAs both in free-living preparasitic juveniles and in parasitic stages settled in the plant tissues. We describe each step of the probe synthesis, digoxigenin (DIG) labeling, nematode extraction from plant tissue, and ISH procedure.