High performance nucleofection unit for difficult to manipulate cell types

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Much of what we know about what is happening in animals or humans derives from studies investigating individual components or blocks included in these complex organisms. Like a car mechanic dismantling all pieces of an engine, biologists dismantle and change pieces of living bodies to enlighten the role of each component. Cells are the basic structural, functional and biological unit of all known living organisms. To study how cells react to their environment and how they communicate between each other it is essential to remove, modify or add components to them. It is well recognized that not all communication events and/or interactions occur in all types of cells. Thus, in order to fully understand how certain cellular processes function, one must study in the cell type of interest, some of which are extremely difficult to manipulate. Hence, the goal of this application is to integrate an advanced technology that permits facile introduction of exogenous material (cDNAs, siRNAs and miRNAs) into these difficult-to-manipulate cell types. Nucleofection is a technique that introduces material into difficult-to-transfect cell types via an electrical pulse. While the concept is not new technology (actually discovered in 1965), the requested Amaxa 4D Nucleofector, is a major advance that permits the manipulation of numerous cell types while keeping them alive. It is an efficient means to introduce material (nucleic acids) into non-dividing cells such as neurons and resting blood cells. This methodology is an improvement over other techniques requiring viruses, which are expensive, have safety risks and often lack reliability. The teams of Vande Velde, Leclerc, Arbour and Fernandes are focused on understanding specific communication systems in different cell types of the brain and the blood. These NSERC-funded (or to be renewed) research programs cannot advance without the ability to manipulate the respective cellular processes in the relevant cell types. The requested equipment is essential for the continued training of high quality HQP and to advancing our collective understanding of fundamental biological processes.