Overview

Microfluidics

Applications in recent research

Microfluidics is a new technology for the study used in synthetic biology and life science. One of the most important applications of microfluidic device was high-throughput automated imaging and screening of worm populations ^[1]. The device can be also used to screen for interesting mutants, drugs or RNAi libraries. In addition, when it comes to study neuronal function and axonal regeneration, laser ablation was successfully achieved in the microfluidic platform. ^[2] Compared to the conservational methods used in the imaging of C.elegans, microfluidics device can largely improve the efficiency and accuracy, greatly reduce the damage to the objectives as well.

We this time creatively applied the novel method to study on the learning ability of C.elegans. Here we designed a platform using microfluidics device and optic equipment to carry out the optogenetics in C.elegans. Modified worms were endued the artificial phenotype of heading for blue light ray but avoiding red light, outputting the neuronal activation signal at the same time. Synchronic worms are selected and injected in the devices. Their behaviors could be observed by using the platform after training to study the operant conditioning and reinforcement. One should be notice that it is a open source platform for studying any of other "learning behavior" in C.elegans.

Review of uses in our project

In the pre-experiments, we used the microfluidic devices to select the appropriate sized worms by slots with certain width, because only the suitable worms could enter the slots. In order to determine whether their original preferences to diacetyl and nonanone will be influenced by the exogenous genes or not, we tested their behaviors (like/dislike) in the microfluidic device with the known diffusion speed of the adding chemicals. Moreover, only one worm could pass a column at the same time so we observed them one by one when detecting their optogenetic behaviors. Their concrete functions will be shown in the next part.(See Team:SUSTech_Shenzhen/Model)

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References

1. ↑ Chung, K., et al. (2008). ”Automated on-chip rapid microscopy, phenotyping and sorting of C. elegans.” Nature Methods 5(7): 637-643.
2. ↑ Ben-Yakar, A., et al. (2009). ”Microfluidics for the analysis of behavior, nerve regeneration, and neural cell biology in C. elegans.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 19(5): 561-567.