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Drosophila Embryo Sorter
Drosophila mutations are maintained in trans to a special chromosome (a balancer chromosome), which ensures that the mutation is inherited in the next generation. As a consequence, only 25% of the embryos produced from these adults contain the homozygous mutation of interest. In order to obtain pure populations of homozygous mutant embryos to conduct biochemical or molecular studies, embryos need to be hand sorted to separate the mutant embryos from the 75% of the population that contain the balancer chromosome. Due to the time consuming and laborious task of hand sorting mutant embryos, the amount of biochemistry that has been traditionally performed on Drosophila embryos has been severely restricted.
We have developed a machine that can automatically sort living transgenic embryos based on the presence or absence of GFP (pdf). This machine can therefore isolate the homozygous mutant embryo population from their balancer siblings, while having no discernable affect on the viability of the embryos.
Build your own Embryo SorterTips for sorting embryos for microarray analysis
