Injection of Butterfly Eggs

by: Amruta Tendolkar

Butterfly eggs are collected on the host plant leaf. The eggs are moved to an injection petri dish that is lined with a double-sided sticky tape. The eggs are positioned in the correct orientation with the micropyle facing up and gently pressed down so that they don’t move during injections. Guide RNA against the target gene and Cas9 protein is injected into the egg through the micropyle.
More information: 

• Martin A, Wolcott NS, O’Connell LA. Bringing immersive science to undergraduate laboratory courses using CRISPR gene knockouts in frogs and butterflies. Journal of Experimental Biology. 2019 (accepted article, in press). [link] [pdf]

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