TY - JOUR
T1 - Enhanced Caenorhabditis elegans locomotion in a structured microfluidic environment
AU - Park, Sungsu
AU - Hwang, Hyejin
AU - Nam, Seong Won
AU - Martinez, Fernando
AU - Austin, Robert H.
AU - Ryu, William S.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - Background: Behavioral studies of Caenorhabditis elegans traditionally are done on the smooth surface of agar plates, but the natural habitat of C. elegans and other nematodes is the soil, a complex and structured environment. In order to investigate how worms move in such environments we have developed a technique to study C. alegans locomotion in microstructures fabricated from agar. Methodology/Principal Findings: When placed in open, liquid-filled, microfluidic chambers containing a square array of posts, we discovered that worms are capable of a novel mode of locomotion, which combines the fast galt of swimming with the more efficient movements of crawling. When the wavelenght of the worms matched the periodicity of the post array, the microstructure directed the swimming and increased the speed of C. elegans ten-fold. We found that mutants defective in mechanosensation (mec-4, mec-10) or mutants with abnormal waveforms (unc-29) did not perform this enhanced locomotion and moved much more slowly than wild-type worms in the microstructure. Conclusion/Significance: These results show that the microstructure can be used as a behavioral screen for mechanosensory and uncoordinated mutants. It is likely that worms use mechanosensation in the movement and navigation through heterogeneous environments.
AB - Background: Behavioral studies of Caenorhabditis elegans traditionally are done on the smooth surface of agar plates, but the natural habitat of C. elegans and other nematodes is the soil, a complex and structured environment. In order to investigate how worms move in such environments we have developed a technique to study C. alegans locomotion in microstructures fabricated from agar. Methodology/Principal Findings: When placed in open, liquid-filled, microfluidic chambers containing a square array of posts, we discovered that worms are capable of a novel mode of locomotion, which combines the fast galt of swimming with the more efficient movements of crawling. When the wavelenght of the worms matched the periodicity of the post array, the microstructure directed the swimming and increased the speed of C. elegans ten-fold. We found that mutants defective in mechanosensation (mec-4, mec-10) or mutants with abnormal waveforms (unc-29) did not perform this enhanced locomotion and moved much more slowly than wild-type worms in the microstructure. Conclusion/Significance: These results show that the microstructure can be used as a behavioral screen for mechanosensory and uncoordinated mutants. It is likely that worms use mechanosensation in the movement and navigation through heterogeneous environments.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0002550
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0002550
M3 - Article
C2 - 18575618
AN - SCOPUS:49649110940
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 3
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 6
M1 - e2550
ER -