Microinjection of Drosophila Nurse Cells: A Method of Intracellular Delivery
Published: April 30, 2023
Abstract
Source: Catrina, I. E., et al. Visualizing and Tracking Endogenous mRNAs in Live Drosophila melanogaster Egg Chambers. J. Vis. Exp. (2019).
Due to their large size and relatively simple organization, Drosophila nurse cells are ideally suited for live cell imaging studies. This video describes a microinjection method for exogenous compounds delivery into the cells, and the featured protocol demonstrates the procedure with fluorescent oligonucleotide probes called molecular beacons (MBs) used to visualize endogenous mRNA transcripts.
Protocol
This protocol is excerpted from Catrina et al., Visualizing and Tracking Endogenous mRNAs in Live Drosophila melanogaster Egg Chambers, J. Vis. Exp. (2019). 1. Design of MBs for Live Cell Imaging Fold the target RNA sequence to predict the mRNA target's secondary structure using the "RNA form" from the mfold server (…
Materials
| Spectrofluorometer | Fluoromax-4 Horiba-Jobin Yvon | n/a | Photon counting spectrofluorometer |
| Quartz cuvette | Fireflysci (former Precision Cells Inc.) | 701MFL | |
| Dumont #5 tweezer | World Precision Instruments | 501985 | Thin tweezers are very important to separate out the individual egg chambers |
| Halocarbon oil 700 | Sigma-Aldrich | H8898 | |
| Cover slip No.1 22 mm x 40 mm | VWR | 48393-048 | |
| Dissecting microscope | Leica MZ6 Leica Microsystems Inc. | n/a | |
| CO2 fruit fly anesthesia pad | Genesee Scienific | 59-114 | |
| Tris-HCL pH 7.5 | Sigma-Aldrich | 1185-53-1 | |
| Magnesium chloride | Sigma-Aldrich | 7791-18-6 | |
| NaCl | Sigma-Aldrich | 7647-14-5 | |
| Spinning disc confocal microscope | Leica DMI-4000B inverted microscope equipped with Yokogawa CSU 10 spinning disc Leica Microsystems Inc. | n/a | |
| Hamamatsu C9100-13 ImagEM EMCCD camera | Hamamatsu | n/a | |
| PatchMan NP 2 Micromanipulator | Eppendorf Inc. | 920000037 | |
| FemtoJet Microinjector | Eppendorf Inc. | 920010504 | |
| Injection needle: Femtotips II | Eppendorf Inc. | 930000043 | |
| Loading tip: 20 μL Microloader | Eppendorf Inc. | 930001007 | |
| Micro Cover glasses no. 1 or 1.5, 22 mm x 40 mm | VWR | 48393-026; 48393-172 | |
| Dry yeast | Any grocery store | n/a | |
| Computer, > 20 GB RAM | Although processing can be carried out on most computers, higher capabilities will increase the speed of the processing |
Cite This Article
Microinjection of Drosophila Nurse Cells: A Method of Intracellular Delivery. J. Vis. Exp. (Pending Publication), e20109, doi: (2023).