New Device Delivers Thousands of Large Molecules Into Cells
 

New Device Delivers Thousands of Large Molecules Into Cells
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Injecting large molecules and even bacteria into the interior of mammalian cells has been a challenging and slow process. It takes about one minute by conventional methods*to inject one cell, but researchers at UCLA have developed a device that can do the same at an astonishing rate of 100,000 per minute.

While traditional techniques use tiny syringe-like pipettes, the new system, called biophotonic laser-assisted surgery tool (BLAST), uses a totally different approach. Cells are positioned on top of a silicon chip that has a large number of tiny holes throughout. The titanium coating of the chip is heated up using a laser, causing liquid below the holes to bubble and propel into the cell membrane, causing a small rupture. This happens in a tiny fraction of a second, letting particles within the liquid below the holes to enter the cells.

From the study abstract in Nature Methods:

The platform delivers large items including bacteria, enzymes, antibodies and na**particles into diverse cell types with high efficiency and cell viability. We used this platform to explore the intracellular lifestyle ofFrancisella **vicida and discovered that the iglC gene is unexpectedly required for intracellular replication even after phagosome escape into the cell cytosol.

Study in Nature Methods: Massively parallel delivery of large cargo into mammalian cells with light pulses…

More from UCLA…

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