Optical coherence tomography guided microinjections in live mouse embryos: High-resolution targeted manipulation for mouse embryonic research

Saba H. Syed, Andrew J. Coughlin, Monica D. Garcia, Shang Wang, Jennifer L. West, Kirill V. Larin, Irina V. Larina

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

The ability to conduct highly localized delivery of contrast agents, viral vectors, therapeutic or pharmacological agents, and signaling molecules or dyes to live mammalian embryos is greatly desired to enable a variety of studies in the field of developmental biology, such as investigating the molecular regulation of cardiovascular morphogenesis. To meet such a demand, we introduce, for the first time, the concept of employing optical coherence tomography (OCT)-guide microinjections in live mouse embryos, which provides precisely targeted manipulation with spatial resolution at the micrometer scale. The feasibility demonstration is performed with experimental studies on cultured live mouse embryos at E8.5 and E9.5. Additionally, we investigate the OCT-guided microinjection of gold-silica nanoshells to the yolk sac vasculature of live cultured mouse embryos at the stage when the heart just starts to beat, as a potential approach for dynamic assessment of cardiovascular form and function before the onset of blood cell circulation. Also, the capability of OCT to quantitatively monitor and measure injection volume is presented. Our results indicate that OCT-guided microinjection could be a useful tool for mouse embryonic research.

Original languageEnglish
Article number051020
JournalJournal of Biomedical Optics
Volume20
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2015

Keywords

  • cardiovascular development
  • gold nanoshells
  • microinjection
  • mouse embryo
  • optical coherence tomography
  • real-time imaging

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