Lately, CRISPR-Cas9 has become one of the most essential tools to understand gene’s function. In the honeybee, however, the application of CRISPR technology has been hindered by various factors leading to very few reports of success in genome editing. Among these, collection of honeybee embryos for microinjection has been a time-consuming procedure, mainly limiting the applicability of the genome editing technique to honeybees. To improve the drawbacks of the conventional plastic plug-based system, we have developed a film-assisted honeybee embryo collection system (FECS) using transparent film as a detachable bottom layer. In this new system, eggs are laid on the detachable film surface and collected in a batch, and thus no additional alignment is required for microinjectoin. As the film can be easily replaced with in a few seconds, embryo collection can be repeated continuously after a single caging of a queen. Also, unlike conventional plug-based systems, the new system utilizes 100% of the eggs laid by the queen, thereby increases the yield three times in theory. The main unit of the system can be printed with ordinary SLA/DLP type 3D printer and the stl file for 3D printing will be distributed online.

• Jae Ho Lee(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University)
• Si Hyeock Lee(Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University)