Visual Servoed Robotic Mouse Oocyte Rotation

Abstract

Both injection and biopsy of a mammalian cell require positioning and orientation of a biological cell in a three-dimensional space under a microscope. Manual cell manipulation and orientation is the most commonly used method that is based on a trial-and-error and direct cell poking approach. OBJECTIVE: Solve inherent problems of existing approaches, including low efficiency, poor success rate and inconsistent output. METHODS: We present a system that is able to automatically rotate a mouse oocyte to a desired orientation based on computer vision. Experimental results demonstrate that the system's capability for intracellular structure recognition and fast oocyte orientation (11.2 s/cell). The system demonstrated overall out-of-plane and in-plane success rates of 94% and 95% respectively. CONCLUSION: Our system performs the oocyte rotation by using standard equipment yet significantly improves the efficiency and success rate. SIGNIFICANCE: Our methods improve existing techniques and provide a starting point for fast autofocusing and oocyte orientation prior to automatic ICSI or cell biopsy.