Research Article
A Novel Fully Automated Incubation, Manipulation and Documentation System for the Avian Embryogenesis
Mohrhardt E1, Schmitt D1, Gorjup E1, Howitz S2, Zimmermann H1,3 and Fuhr G1,3*1Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Ensheimer Strasse 48, 66386 St. Ingbert, Germany
2GeSiM mbH, Bautzner Landstraße 45, 01454 Grosserkmannsdorf, Germany
3Saarland University, Campus Saarbrücken, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
- Corresponding Author:
- Fuhr G
Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering
Ensheimer Strasse 48, 66386 St. Ingbert, Germany
Tel: +49 (0) 6894/980-291
E-mail: elmar.mohrhardt@ ibmt.fraunhofer.de
Received date: May 12, 2015; Accepted date: September 25, 2015; Published date: September 30, 2015
Citation: Mohrhardt E, Schmitt D, Gorjup E, Howitz S, Zimmermann H, et al. (2015) A Novel Fully Automated Incubation, Manipulation and Documentation System for the Avian Embryogenesis. J Biotechnol Biomater 5:202.doi:10.4172/2155-952X.1000202
Copyright: © 2015 Mohrhardt E, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Scientifically the avian egg is a well-established and increasingly used animal model predominantly represented by the chicken (gallus gallus domesticus). Apart from developmental biology studies, chicken eggs are used in angiogenesis, tumor and irritation studies. For all those experimental setups a culture and incubation system is required providing excellent documentation of environmental parameters as temperature and relative humidity and optical accessibility, flexible manipulation during the complete embryonic development of the chicken (usually 21 days) and stable survival rate. Here we present an avian egg incubator with a modular lid system comprising a glass window with condensation prevention and a parallel access for manipulation. We show the influence of light exposure as well as turning speed and frequency on the embryo survival rate for optimized culture conditions. Incubator and lid system were evaluated successfully up to the hatch of normally developed chicken, while automatically documenting their embryogenesis. The new incubation system holds benefits like automated high quality documentation, online manipulation and adjustable incubation and opens up completely new applications in the field of avian embryo culture.