Advanced Micro and Nanosystems Laboratory, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
PLoS One. 2007 Sep 12;2(9):e862. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000862.
As an important embodiment of biomanipulation, injection of foreign materials (e.g., DNA, RNAi, sperm, protein, and drug compounds) into individual cells has significant implications in genetics, transgenics, assisted reproduction, and drug discovery. This paper presents a microrobotic system for fully automated zebrafish embryo injection, which overcomes the problems inherent in manual operation, such as human fatigue and large variations in success rates due to poor reproducibility. Based on computer vision and motion control, the microrobotic system performs injection at a speed of 15 zebrafish embryos (chorion unremoved) per minute, with a survival rate of 98% (n = 350 embryos), a success rate of 99% (n = 350 embryos), and a phenotypic rate of 98.5% (n = 210 embryos). The sample immobilization technique and microrobotic control method are applicable to other biological injection applications such as the injection of mouse oocytes/embryos and Drosophila embryos to enable high-throughput biological and pharmaceutical research.
作为生物操纵的重要体现，将外来物质（如 DNA、RNAi、精子、蛋白质和药物化合物）注射到单个细胞中，在遗传学、转基因、辅助生殖和药物发现方面具有重要意义。本文提出了一种用于全自动斑马鱼胚胎注射的微机器人系统，该系统克服了手动操作固有的问题，例如由于可重复性差而导致的人为疲劳和成功率变化较大。基于计算机视觉和运动控制，微机器人系统以每分钟 15 个（未去除卵黄囊的）斑马鱼胚胎的速度进行注射，存活率为 98%（n = 350 个胚胎），成功率为 99%（n = 350 个胚胎），表型率为 98.5%（n = 210 个胚胎）。样本固定技术和微机器人控制方法适用于其他生物注射应用，如小鼠卵母细胞/胚胎和果蝇胚胎的注射，从而能够进行高通量的生物和药物研究。
