title: Quantitative analysis of Caenorhabditis elegans chemotaxis using a microfluidic device.
abstract: Caenorhabditis elegans, one of the widely studied model organisms, sense external chemical cues and perform relative chemotaxis behaviors through its simple chemosensory neuronal system. To study the mechanism underlying chemosensory behavior, a rapid and reliable method for quantitatively analyzing the worms' behaviors is essential. In this work, we demonstrated a microfluidic approach for investigating chemotaxis responses of worms to chemical gradients. The flow-based microfluidic chip was consisted of circular tree-like microchannels, which was able to generate eight flow streams containing stepwise chemical concentrations without the difference in flow velocity. Worms' upstream swimming into microchannels with various concentrations was monitored for quantitative analysis of the chemotaxis behavior. By using this microfluidic chip, the attractive and repellent responses of C. elegans to NaCl were successfully quantified within several minutes. The results demonstrated the wild type-like repellent responses and severely impaired attractive responses in grk-2 mutant animals with defects in calcium influx. In addition, the chemotaxis analysis of the third stage larvae revealed that its gustatory response was different from that in the adult stage. Thus, our microfluidic method provided a useful platform for studying the chemosensory behaviors of C. elegans and screening of chemosensation-related chemical drugs.
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors: Liang
authors: L
authors: Hu
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors: Jinjuan
authors: J
authors: Ye
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors: Haowei
authors: H
authors: Tan
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors: Anle
authors: A
authors: Ge
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors: Lichun
authors: L
authors: Tang
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors: Xiaojun
authors: X
authors: Feng
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. Electronic address: weidu@mail.hust.edu.cn.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Du
authors: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors: Bi-Feng
authors: BF
authors: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000502:physiology*; D002633:Chemotaxis; D004867:Equipment Design; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012965:Sodium Chloride / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D012965:Sodium Chloride
keywords: Caenorhabditis elegans; Chemical gradient; Chemotaxis; Microfluidic device