A microfluidic device and automatic counting system for the study of C. elegans reproductive aging.

Li, Siran, Stone, Howard A, Murphy, Coleen T (January 2015) A microfluidic device and automatic counting system for the study of C. elegans reproductive aging. Lab on a Chip: miniaturisation for chemistry, physics, biology, materials science and bioengineering, 15 (2). pp. 524-531. ISSN 1473-0197

URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25407755
DOI: 10.1039/c4lc01028k

Abstract

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is an excellent model to study reproductive aging because of its short life span, its cessation of reproduction in mid-adulthood, and the strong conservation of pathways that regulate longevity. During its lifetime, a wild-type C. elegans hermaphrodite usually lays about 200-300 self-fertilized hatchable eggs, which mainly occurs in the first three to five days of adulthood. Here, we report the development of a microfluidic assay and a real-time, automatic progeny counting system that records progeny counting information from many individual C. elegans hermaphrodites. This system offers many advantages compared to conventional plate assays. The flow of non-proliferating bacteria not only feeds the worms but also flushes the just-hatched young progeny through a filter that separates mothers from their offspring. The progeny that are flushed out of the chamber are detected and recorded using a novel algorithm. In our current design, one device contains as many as 16 individual chambers. Here we show examples of real-time progeny production information from wild-type (N2) and daf-2 (insulin receptor) mutants. We believe that this system has the potential to become a powerful, high time-resolution tool to study the detailed reproduction of C. elegans.

Item Type: Paper
Subjects: organism description > animal > C elegans
Investigative techniques and equipment > microscopy
CSHL Authors:
Communities: CSHL labs > Wigler lab
SWORD Depositor: CSHL Elements
Depositing User: CSHL Elements
Date: 21 January 2015
Date Deposited: 10 May 2021 13:24
Last Modified: 10 May 2021 13:24
PMCID: PMC4277648
URI: https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/40070

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