title: A microfluidic device and automatic counting system for the study of C. elegans reproductive aging.
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.
authors.affiliation: Lewis-Sigler Institute for integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. ctmurphy@princeton.edu.
authors.forename: Siran
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Howard A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.forename: Coleen T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Murphy
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000254:growth & development*; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D008136:Longevity; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009154:Mutation; D010063:Ovum / Q000378:metabolism; D011972:Receptor, Insulin / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D012098:Reproduction
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D011972:Receptor, Insulin