Efficient manipulation of neurons with FluidFM ®

Inject, extract, and relocate a single neuron with high specificity

The gentle nature of FluidFM enables injection of, extraction from, and relocation of selected neurons without compromising on viability.

Neuron gene editing and efficient manipulation of neurons with FluidFM.

Successful gene editing of neurons

Controlled nuclear injection ensures successful gene editing on single neurons without compromising viability.

Delivery of any compound on or into the cell

FluidFM probe enables gentle, controlled delivery of reagents into the nucleus, the cytoplasm or onto the membrane of a single neuron.

Simple, reproducible workflows

With one-click, easily edit the neuron of your choice using simple and efficient workflows.

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Neuron transfection - injected neuron with FluidFM. Courtesy Sen Yan, Jinan University.

Neuron expressing GFP 24 h after injection of a plasmid encoding GFP using FluidFM. Courtesy of Sen Yan, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.

Injected neuron. Courtesy Yujie Sun, Peking University.

Red fluorescent dextran spreading in a C57BL/6 C57 mouse hippocampal neuron after injection. Courtesy of Yujie Sun, Peking University, Beijing, China.

Guiding neurite growth along a printed line of PLL. Courtesy Harald Dermutz, ETH Zurich.

Image shows PLL line in green, printed with FluidFM between two groups of neurons. In red, neurite growth driven by PLL can be seen. Courtesy of Harald Dermutz, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

More on Neuroscience

Application areas of FluidFM technology for neuroscience include neurogenerative disease, neuromuscular disease, brain tumors, neuronal development, neuronal network, molecular and cellular neuroscience.

Neurons depend on cell-cell interaction and communication with neighboring cells like other neurons as well as with glial cells like oligodendrocytes that form the insulating myelin sheath around axons. Therefore, it has always been the aim in neuroscience to look at the single cell level and to understand the processes for those cells to interact with each other. More recently, also the interactions with immune cells have gained increasing interest in the scientific community, specifically due to their importance in the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis. With FluidFM, individual cells of different types can be brought in proximity and their interaction investigated.

Neurons are difficult to transfect as they are typically non-dividing which makes the genomic DNA less accessible. Consequently, genetic editing with nucleases like the CRISPR-system is not successful with traditional transfection methods, such as electroporation, lipofectamine or viral vectors. The direct nuclear-injection ability with FluidFM however allows to directly bring nucleic acids or proteins into the nucleus enabling transfection and genome editing of neurons.