Fully automated microinjection system for Xenopus laevis oocytes with integrated sorting and collection

Area of Science:

• Cell Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Biotechnology

Background:

• Microinjection offers reagent flexibility but suffers from low throughput compared to chemical or viral methods.
• Existing automation efforts for microinjection often neglect crucial pre- and post-injection steps, limiting overall efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and demonstrate a fully automated system, XenoFactor, for high-throughput microinjection.
• To optimize the XenoFactor system for Xenopus laevis oocytes, encompassing the entire workflow from cell preparation to collection.

Main Methods:

• Development of the XenoFactor system for automated cell handling and microinjection.
• Optimization of the system for Xenopus laevis oocytes, including sorting, positioning, injection, and collection.
• Comparative analysis of manual versus automated microinjection workflows.

Main Results:

• The XenoFactor system successfully automated the entire microinjection process for Xenopus laevis oocytes.
• Manual processing of 400 oocytes took 1 day, while the XenoFactor completed the task in 4 hours.
• Automated injection resulted in reproducible oocyte quality, free from manual fatigue symptoms.

Conclusions:

• The XenoFactor system represents a significant advancement in automating microinjection, enhancing throughput and efficiency.
• This automated approach provides a robust and reproducible method for preparing microinjected Xenopus laevis oocytes.
• The system addresses the limitations of previous automation attempts by integrating the complete workflow.