Real-Time Force Sensing in the Envelope of Zebrafish Egg during Micropipette Penetration

In biological cell manipulation, manual thrust or penetration of an injection pipette into an egg is currently performed by a skilled operator, relying only on visual feedback information. Massive load of various micro injection of either genes, fluid or cells in the postgenomic era calls a more reliable and automatic micro injection system that can test hundreds of genes or cell types at a single experiment. We initiated to study cellular force sensing in zebrafish eggs as the first step for the development of a more controllable micro injection system by any inexperienced operator. Zebrafish eggs at different developmental stages were collected and an integrated biomanipulation system was employed to measure cellular force during penetrating the egg envelope, the chorion. First of all, the biomanipulation system integrated with cellular force sensing instrument is implemented to measure the penetration force of cell membranes and characterize mechanical properties of zebrafish embryo cells. Furthermore, implementation of cellular force sensing system and calibration are presented. Finally, the cellular force sensing of penetrating cell membranes at each developmental stages was experimentally performed. The results demonstrated that the biomanipulation system with force sensing capability can measure cellular force at real-time while the injection operation is undergoing. The magnitude of the measured force was in the range of several hundreds of uN. The precise real-time measurement should provide the first step forwards for the development of an automatic and reliable injection system of various materials into biological cells.