The Translational/ Rotational Piezoelectric Impact Drive Mechanism for Cell/tissue Extraction from Mouse Cranial Window
Hirotaka Sugiura, Hiroki Kunii, Satoshi Amaya, Kawamura Shuntaro, Takebe Takanori, Fumihito Arai
AI summary
Problem
Precise, localized cell and tissue extraction from living, viscoelastic tissues for downstream gene analysis remains difficult due to insufficient suction force and tissue deformation. Existing methods are largely limited to fixed samples or lack in-vivo capability.
Approach
The authors developed a device that superimposes translational and rotational piezoelectric impact motions onto a knife-edged glass capillary to generate shear and twisting forces for tissue fragmentation. A specialized controller synchronizes these motions to enable precise, bidirectional actuation.
Key results
- Hybrid translational/rotational motion significantly improves extraction volume in viscoelastic gels
- Synchronous chopping motion efficiently drives rotational shear for tissue fragmentation
- Specialized controller enables precise bidirectional motion with real-time orientation switching
- Successful in-vivo extraction demonstrated in thrombus-induced mouse cranial windows
Why it matters
Provides a foundational tool for high-precision, localized gene profiling of disease-relevant tissues in live animal models.
Abstract
We developed a microscopic cell/tissue extraction device that employed a translational/rotational piezoelectric impact drive mechanism (Piezo IDM). To perform the correlation between gene expression and localized tissue sample at the micrometer scale, the system inserted a knife-edged glass capillary driven by the Piezo IDM and extracted the cells/tissues. The hybridized use of the translational and rotational impact motion significantly improved suction performance, resulting in the reliable acquisition of small, localized cells and tissues, which were previously difficult to be isolated. To characterize the motion of the Piezo IDM, the amplitude and frequency dependence were measured, and were compared with the simulation model. In addition, we found that the synchronous chopping motion could exert the rotational motion efficiently. For the automation, a specialized controller was developed to exert bidirectional motion. The experimental demonstration was performed for both the artificial gel sample and the practical mouse cranial window (CW). The result of the gel sample clearly exhibited the effectiveness of hybridizing the translational and rotational motion of Piezo IDM for cell/tissue extraction. The practical demonstration of the neutrophil extraction experiments in thrombus-induced mice also elucidated the potential performance of the accurate tissue extraction from the in-vivo environment.