Abstract
Microfluidic devices offer several advantages for C. elegans research, particularly for presenting precise physical and chemical environments, immobilizing animals during imaging, quantifying behavior, and automating screens. However, challenges to their widespread adoption in the field include increased complexity over conventional methods, operational problems (such as clogging, leaks, and bubbles), difficulty in obtaining or fabricating devices, and the need to characterize biological results obtained from new assay formats. Here we describe the preparation and operation of simple, reusable microfluidic devices for quantifying behavioral responses to chemical patterns, and single-use devices to arrange animals for time-lapse microscopy and to measure neuronal activity. We focus on details that eliminate or reduce the frustrations commonly experienced by new users of microfluidic devices.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award at the Scientific Interface (DRA) and NSF. We thank members of the authors’ laboratory, L. Innarelli, K. Tran, K. Burnett, and B. Altshuler for their review and helpful comments while testing these protocols. Strains were obtained from C. Bargmann, V. Ambros, and the CGC.
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Lagoy, R.C., Larsen, E., Lawler, D., White, H., Albrecht, D.R. (2022). Microfluidic Devices for Behavioral Analysis, Microscopy, and Neuronal Imaging in Caenorhabditis elegans. In: Haspel, G., Hart, A.C. (eds) C. elegans. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2468. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2181-3_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2181-3_16
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