A novel on-chip immobilization strategy for imaging analysis of neuronal response to gas cues in C. elegans

作者：Wang, Xixian; Ge, Anle; Hu, Liang; Feng, Xiaojun; Du, Wei^*; Liu, Bi-Feng

来源：Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical , 2017, 244: 1152-1159.

DOI：10.1016/j.snb.2017.01.083

• Microfluidic chip
• C. elegans
• Surface-dehydration
• Immobilization
• In vivo neuronal imaging
• Gas stimulation

C. elegans was widely used as a prominent model organism in the study of physiological response to gaseous environment, thanks to its suitability for in vivo optical imaging of neuronal sensing. Immobilization of the active worms is a key procedure to obtain high-resolution imaging and gas stimulations. In this work, we presented a novel microfluidic approach for immobilizing C. elegans due to the fact that its movement could be eliminated under the condition of gentle surface-dehydration. Nitrogen gas was directly injected into the microfluidic chip to dehydrate the surface of worm appropriately, resulting in rapid and repetitive immobilization of C. elegans. The imaging analysis of subcellular distribution of DAF-16, a well-known transcription factor regulating different stress responses, indicated that this dehydration-based immobilization method would not induce obvious stress response of the worm within 20 min. Furthermore, this microfluidic device could generate gas stimulation to the immobilized worm without the interference resulted from the switch of liquid-gas. Finally, the developed micro-device clearly demonstrated that URX neuronal responses were induced by oxygen gas with increasing levels of 0-20%, indicating that this method could be used for imaging analysis of gas-evoked neuronal sensing, especially to the pressure-change sensitive neurons in C elegans.

• 出版日期2017-6
• 单位中国科学院; 华中科技大学; 中国科学院青岛生物能源与过程研究所