Microinjection of Drosophila Nurse Cells: A Method of Intracellular Delivery

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

1. Fold the target RNA sequence to predict the mRNA target's secondary structure using the "RNA form" from the mfold server (http://unafold.rna.albany.edu/?q=mfold/RNA-Folding-Form).
   1. Paste/upload the target sequence in FASTA format, select 5 or 10% s....

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
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