The CellCelector is a system for automatic detection, gentle isolation and precise transfer of cell colonies, single cells or parts of tissue.
The user sets parameters characteristic for the cells of interest (morphology, fluorescence signals etc.). The camera scans a definable area of the culture dish, detects target cells and provides all position data to the software.
Individual cells can be aspirated by glass capillaries up to a volume of 12 μl. Application specific less than ten nanoliter aspiration volume per cell can be sufficient.
Cell colonies or tissue sections can be isolated by metallic scrape capillaries performing a scrape movement to resolve it from surrounding cells. It is most useful for tissue sections on glass slides, colonies in liquid media or within methylcellulose.
The harvested cells or tissue material can be transferred to any type of cell culture dish, glass slides or chamber slides. The high precision of positioning cells allows for single cell arrays in multiwell plates, microengraving slides or preparation for single cell PCR.
In order to keep the whole process reproducible and documented an image of each cell or colony before and after harvesting is stored in the database and assigned to the deposit position in the destination plate.