Mitochondrial dysfunction is at the core of many diseases, ranging from inherited metabolic diseases to common conditions that are associated with ageing. While associations between ageing and mitochondrial function have been identified using mammalian models, much of the mechanistic insight has emerged from C. elegans. Mitochondrial respiration is recognized as an indicator of mitochondrial health. Seahorse XF96 respirometers are the state-of-the-art platform to assess respiration in cells, and we adapted the technique for applications involving C. elegans. Here, we provide a detailed protocol to optimise and measure respiration in C. elegans with the XF96 respirometer, including the interpretation of parameters and results. The protocol takes ~2 days to complete, excluding time spent culturing C. elegans, and includes (i) the preparation of C. elegans samples, (ii) selection and loading of compounds to be injected, (iii) preparing and executing a run with the XF96 respirometer, and (iv) post-experimental data-analysis, including normalization. In addition, we compare our XF96 application with other existing techniques, including the 8-well Seahorse XFp. The main benefits of the XF96 include the limited number of worms required and high-throughput capacity due to 96-well format.

The WF-NTP extends significantly the power of existing automated platforms by combining enhanced optical imaging techniques with an advanced software platform. We anticipate that this approach will further extend the scope and utility of C. elegans as a model organism.

As the population is aging, the incidence of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson disease, is growing. The pathology of neurodegenerative diseases is characterized by the presence of protein aggregates of disease specific proteins in the brain of patients. Under certain conditions these disease proteins can undergo structural rearrangements resulting in misfolded proteins that can lead to the formation of aggregates with a fibrillar amyloid-like structure. Cells have different mechanisms to deal with this protein aggregation, where the molecular chaperone machinery constitutes the first line of defense against misfolded proteins. Proteins that cannot be refolded are subjected to degradation and compartmentalization processes. Amyloid formation has traditionally been described as responsible for the proteotoxicity associated with different neurodegenerative disorders. Several mechanisms have been suggested to explain such toxicity, including the sequestration of key proteins and the overload of the protein quality control system. Here, we review different aspects of the involvement of amyloid-forming proteins in disease, mechanisms of toxicity, structural features, and biological functions of amyloids, as well as the cellular mechanisms that modulate and regulate protein aggregation, including the presence of enhancers and suppressors of aggregation, and how aging impacts the functioning of these mechanisms, with special attention to the molecular chaperones.