From owner-drosophila@net.bio.net Thu Feb 02 22:00:00 1995 Path: biosci!bcm!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!robertson2.life.uiuc.edu!user From: d-lampe@uiuc.edu (David Lampe) Newsgroups: bionet.drosophila Subject: Re: Microinjection set ups ? Followup-To: bionet.drosophila Date: Fri, 03 Feb 1995 10:04:28 -0600 Organization: U of Illinois Lines: 52 Message-ID: References: <3grlv0$58a@hecate.umd.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: robertson2.life.uiuc.edu In article <3grlv0$58a@hecate.umd.edu>, saville@umail.umd.edu (Ken Saville) wrote: > Hi, > > I am researching the cost of setting for micro-injecting Drosophila > eggs, e.g. for P-element transformations. I have been spoiled as a > postdoc with rather expensive set ups and would like to know the least > expensive way to go. In particular, Is there a recommended minimal > microscope, mechanical stage, and micromanipulator set up. How about > needle pullers? what's the cheapest that will work ? > > Any advice or recommendations for references would be appreciated. > > Thanks > > ken saville Dear Ken, You might want to have a look at DIS 72:80. Simmons and Drier describe a very nice low cost injection apparatus. We use a similar one here. It consists of a number of items we already had in the lab:a stereo microsope and fiber optic light source. A set of 15X oculars (borrowed these). A Brinkman micromanipulator (borrowed this from an electrophysiology colleague) and a heavy metal base that allows the micromanipulator to be mounted such that the eggs can be injected in the horizontal plane (this was made in the school's machine shop). The slide with the egg is slid along a metal platform so that the part of the slide with the eggs hangs over the edge of the platform. Illumination is from below with reflected light from the fiber optic lamp. I wish I had a photograph of this thing that I could scan and post on our WEB site so you could see it!! Hope this is clear. If not feel free to contact me. If you can scrounge the parts like we did (and even if you can't) this set up is very cheap and works well. Good luck, David Lampe Dept. Entomology University of Illinois 505 S. Goodwin Urbana, Illinois 61801 USA d-lampe@uiuc.edu http://www.life.uiuc.edu/Entomology/Dave/davel.html .