title: Detecting and Trapping of a Single C. elegans Worm in a Microfluidic Chip for Automated Microplate Dispensing.
abstract: Microfluidic devices offer new technical possibilities for a precise manipulation of Caenorhabditis elegans due to the comparable length scale. C. elegans is a small, free-living nematode worm that is a popular model system for genetic, genomic, and high-throughput experimental studies of animal development and neurobiology. In this paper, we demonstrate a microfluidic system in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) for dispensing of a single C. elegans worm into a 96-well plate. It consists of two PDMS layers, a flow and a control layer. Using five microfluidic pneumatic valves in the control layer, a single worm is trapped upon optical detection with a pair of optical fibers integrated perpendicular to the constriction channel and then dispensed into a microplate well with a dispensing tip attached to a robotic handling system. Due to its simple design and facile fabrication, we expect that our microfluidic chip can be expanded to a multiplexed dispensation system of C. elegans worms for high-throughput drug screening.
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Israel T
authors.initials: IT
authors.lastname: Desta
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Abdelrazak
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Al-Sharif
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Nour
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: AlGharibeh
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Nahal
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mustafa
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Ajymurat
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Orozaliev
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Giakoumidis
authors.affiliation: 2 Department of Biology, New York University, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, NY, USA.|3 Division of Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
authors.forename: Kristin C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Gunsalus
authors.affiliation: 1 Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE.|4 Tandon School of Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Yong-Ak
authors.initials: YA
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000295:instrumentation; D057166:High-Throughput Screening Assays / Q000295:instrumentation; D056656:Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*
keywords: C. elegans worm; dispensing; flow cytometry; high-throughput screening; microfluidics