Local nano-injection of fluorescent nano-beads inside C. elegans based on nanomanipulation

This paper presents a novel selective nano-injection method using fluorescent nanobeads based on nanomanipulation for in-vivo single cell analysis. The nanomanipulation system was constructed under hybrid microscope. The hybrid microscope consists of the optical microscope (OM) and environmental-scanning electron microscope (E-SEM) to realize biological specimen analysis by optical imaging including fluorescent imaging, and nano-scale manipulation by E-SEM imaging. Based on the bio-nano manipulation system, we propose a nanoinjection method by nanoprobe insertion and nanobead embeddedness. The nanoprobe was designed to have four tips to fix single nanobead. It is fabricated by focused ion beam (FIB) process. Its nano-scale size is considered to be important for minimal damage to a biological specimen. In this work, as biological specimen, the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) was used. It is one of the important model organisms for various diseases analysis. The nanoinjection technique is applied to transport fluorescent materials or specific biological organism into a specific cell for in-vivo experiment of C. elegans. The proposed system is considered to be important as future nano-surgery system for life innovation using model organism.