Abstract
The mouse preimplantation embryo is an excellent system for studying how mammalian cells organize dynamically into increasingly complex structures. Accessible to experimental and genetic manipulations, its normal or perturbed development can be scrutinized ex vivo by real-time imaging from fertilization to late blastocyst stage. High-resolution imaging of multiple embryos at the same time can be compromised by embryos displacement during imaging. We have developed an inexpensive and easy-to-produce imaging device that facilitates greatly the imaging of preimplantation embryo. In this chapter, we describe the different steps of production and storage of the imaging device as well as its use for live imaging of mouse preimplantation embryos expressing fluorescent reporters from genetically modified alleles or after in vitro transcribed mRNA transfer by microinjection or electroporation.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the Institut Pasteur, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-LABX-73-01 REVIVE and ANR-14 CE11-0017 PrEpiSpec) for their support. The activity of the Biomaterials and Microfluidics core facility is partially funded by the Carnot MS program. We are grateful to all lab members for their help and in particular Gwendoline Tallec and Sylvain Bessonnard for their involvement in the design and validation of the initial version of the mouse Eggbox. We thank Jérôme Artus for critical reading of the manuscript.
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Vandormael-Pournin, S., Frachon, E., Gobaa, S., Cohen-Tannoudji, M. (2021). Microfabricated Device for High-Resolution Imaging of Preimplantation Embryos. In: Ancelin, K., Borensztein, M. (eds) Epigenetic Reprogramming During Mouse Embryogenesis. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2214. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0958-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0958-3_2
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