We have miniaturized standard culture techniques to rear arrays of isolated, individual C. elegans throughout their lives on solid gel media. The resulting apparatus is compatible with brightfield and fluorescence microscopy, enabling longitudinal studies of morphology and fluorescent transgene expression. Our culture system exploits a novel crosslinking reaction between a polyethylene glycol hydrogel and a silicone elastomer to constrain animals to individual “corrals” on the gel surface. These devices are simple to construct on the benchtop with commercially available reagents, and, unlike microfluidic isolation methods, do not rely on micropatterned materials. We demonstrate that this new culture method has negligible effects on the physiology of C. elegans compared to standard culture on agar plates. In addition, RNAi techniques are effective in this system. Finally, the hydrogel–silicone binding chemistry that we developed also allows traditional microfluidic devices to be covalently attached to gel substrates instead of glass.

中文翻译：

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用于单个秀丽隐杆线虫长期成像的简单培养系统

我们已经将标准培养技术微型化，以在固体凝胶培养基上终生分离出的单个秀丽隐杆线虫阵列。所得仪器与明场和荧光显微镜兼容，可进行形态学和荧光转基因表达的纵向研究。我们的培养系统利用了聚乙二醇水凝胶和有机硅弹性体之间的新型交联反应，将动物限制在凝胶表面上的各个“围栏”上。这些设备很容易使用商用试剂在台式计算机上构建，并且与微流体分离方法不同，它们不依赖于微图案化的材料。我们证明这种新的培养方法对秀丽隐杆线虫的生理影响可忽略不计与琼脂平板上的标准培养物相比。另外，RNAi技术在该系统中有效。最后，我们开发的水凝胶与硅酮的结合化学也使传统的微流体装置可以共价结合到凝胶基质而不是玻璃上。