Automated healthspan assay method with Caenorhabditis elegans based on a robot

"Caenorhabditis elegans is a widely used model in research due to its simplicity and the existence of a complete molecular toolkit and the genome sequence, making it ideal for an efficient study of genetic function. Many of the genes in the C.elegans genome have functional counterpart genes in humans, which makes this organism a useful model for the study of human diseases. When researching new therapeutic agents, the assays for neurodegenerative diseases include the inoculation of the pathogen to the in vivo model and the monitoring of its mobility patterns, extracting data such as the number of tail flogs per minute. The escalation of this process and the requirement for constant monitoring make these activities attractive for automatization. For this purpose, researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia have developed a technology that will allow obtaining characteristics of C.elegans automatically with a multiple-view optic system. The system is formed by: A low-resolution static camera that allows the framing of the whole petri dish; A high-resolution moving camera which allows the monitoring and framing of an individual C.elegans; Illumination elements; a stage for at least one Petri dish; a laser pointer in which a laser beam is captured by the static camera allowing to position the framing of the moving camera; A moving track that has the dish stage and the static camera assembled and moves on the XY-axis. A moving head that moves on the Z-axis and has the laser pointer and the moving camera assembled to it, controlling the moving camera framing and focus; and a robot that moves the track on the XY-axis and the head on the Z- axis. The Petri dish with C.elegans is placed on the microscope stage, with lateral or rear illumination and with a static macro camera on the stage base. The moving micro camera is above the base, assembled next to the laser pointer on the moving head which allows its displacement through Z-axis. In this way, the robot allows a general view of the colony with the macro camera and the microscale framing of each C.elegans, controlling the focus point of the micro camera with the aid of the laser beam. The technology is in a TRL 3, analytical and laboratory studies have been performed to validate the feasibility of the system; in addition, the software is in the last stages of development."