Anyone using tungsten beads for bombardment?

Model Organism: Worms Methods & Reagents
1

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone has tried using tungsten beads for microparticle bombardment. I did a quick search and there were very few mentions of using tungsten beads with C. elegans.

It would be great if they could be used with little change in protocols since they are significantly cheaper.

Thanks in advance!

Clay

2

Dear Cspencer,
We are regularly doing our Bombardment using Tungsten particle and it work as good as using gold particle.
see the Reference
“Multiple maternal proteins coordinate to restrict the
translation of C. elegans nanos-2 to primordial germ cells
Development 135, 1803-1812 (2008) doi:10.1242/dev.013656”
Thanks,
Mainpal

3

Hi Mainpal,

Are you generating integrated lines regularly using tungsten particles or just extrachromosomal array lines? And there are no modifications as to how you coat tungsten vs gold beads?

Thanks!
Steve

4

Dear Steve Von Stetina,
Yes, we are generating integrated lines regularly using tungsten particles and as such there is no modification for the coating of particles with the DNA. But there is a minor modification for the distance between the plate for bombardment and Hepta adapter, we put worm plate at the 2nd place slot from the bottom of the bombardment machine chamber and this modification seems to give us more rescued line.
Best of Luck,
Mainpal Rana

5

Hi Mainpal,

Thank you for the information. We will give it a try.

Best,

Clay Spencer