Description
Material provided: Physical access for end-users
Unit definition: 1 week of access
Biosafety Level: CL2
Location: Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (MPIIB), Berlin, Germany
Installation name: Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (MPIIB)
Website: MPIIB
The facility
The CL2 insectary at the MPIIB allows breeding, selection and high-throughput sexing of transgenic mosquitoes using COPAS instrument. The CL3 laboratory at MPIIB is composed by a closed system of 3 modules equipped for (i) infectious blood feeding; (ii) mosquito breeding (26ºC 80% RH), and (iii) infected mosquito manipulation. Combined with the cell culture module for continuous P. falciparum gametocyte culture, this infrastructure supports research in the field of mosquito immunity, transmission-blocking vaccine testing, and functional analysis of mosquito mutants. This infrastructure also offers a possibility to produce high numbers of P. falciparum sporozoites for traversal assays using human hepatoma cells (HC-04) and FACS.
The infrastructure enables to evaluate effects of genetic selection of a series of mosquito strains or mutations, or symbiotic bacteria, or transmission-blocking antibodies on mosquito capacity to support development of P. falciparum ookinetes, oocysts and/or sporozoites, and to evaluate their virulence using in vitro tests (traversal assay). The infrastructure was solicited by researchers from the UK, and is actively used by researchers from CNRS (France), from DKFZ (Germany) and from IIS (Italy) for testing transgenic mosquitoes, genetically selected mosquito lines, human anti-CSP antibodies in P. falciparum infections and P. falciparum knock-out parasites.
Available vectors
Experiments will be conducted with Anopheles coluzzii Ngousso strain. Users’ own mosquito colony/strain of interest might be hosted in the lab for the duration of the experiment, upon specific agreement.
Services offered
One Unit is a 1-week access to a dedicated CL2 lab to undertake some of the end-point functional assays described above. The unit of access offers the rearing of the mosquitoes necessary for the experiments prior to the arrival of the end-user and preparation the parasite stock. Mosquito infections with P. falciparum gametocytes will be performed in the CL3 space by internal trained personnel prior or during the end-user access period, upon specific agreement. Subsequent analysis will be realised by the end-user with help from a technician and supervision by a researcher for completion of the assays when necessary.
Equipment
CL2 confined space is equipped with:
- Inverted Fluorescence Microscope with Apotome module (AxioObserver Z.1, Zeiss)
- Fluorescent stereoscope (M205 FA, Leica)
- Optical microscope with digital colour-camera (DM2000 LED, Leica)
- COPAS Plus (Union Biometrica)
- Optical stereoscopes for mosquito dissections (CL 1500 Eco, Zeiss)
- CO2 pads for mosquito manipulation (Sleeper, Inject+Matic)
- Microinjectors (Nanoject I and III, Drummond Scientific)
- Biological Safety cabinet for sporozoite in vitro assays (HeraSafe, Thermo Fisher)
- Access to a LSR Fortessa (BD) from the institute facility
For more information, please contact us.