High throughput easy microinjection with a single-cell manipulation supporting robot.

A single-cell manipulation supporting robot (SMSR) has been developed for the high throughput and easy microinjection. Its concept is to let an experimenter concentrate his/her attention only on the microinjection by facilitating other associated works. SMSR was applied to the microinjection into rice protoplasts and mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. The microinjection into these cells is exceptionally difficult than usual animal cells such as fibroblasts. In the case of rice protoplast, for example, non-stop microinjection into 100 cells could be done within 1h that was 17-times faster than that of the robot-less work. The success rate was 7-8% that was same level obtained by the robot-less work. The present results indicate that SMSR is a useful machine for the microinjection of specific genes and proteins in living cells to analyze their respective functions, which is an urgent and important subject in the post-genome era.