The piezo-driven injector based on friction force for cellular piercing

The piezo-driven technology with the aid of mercury is effective for performing the introcytoplamic sperm injection. However, the toxicity of mercury may cause damage to the operators and oocytes which call for the elimination of the mercury. Although the substitutes are developed, they don´t work as well as the mercury. To obtain a better result without mercury, a piezo-driven technology based on the friction force is proposed for the piercing of mouse oocytes. A series of experiments are conducted which demonstrate the efficiency of this modified technology. Furthermore, the lateral vibration of the injection pipette is tiny as fine as 1μm which is physically invisible at 400 magnifications. This tiny lateral vibration contributes to the cellular piercing. According to the great cleavage rate of the mouse oocytes and gained tiny lateral vibration without the assistance of the mercury, this modified technology will have a tremendous potential in many fields.