A Platform for High‐Throughput Assessments of Environmental Multistressors

Abstract

A platform compatible with microtiter plates to parallelize environmental treatments to test the complex impacts of multiple stressors, including parameters relevant to climate change and point source pollutants is developed. This platform leverages (1) the high rate of purely diffusive gas transport in aerogels to produce well‐defined centimeter‐scale gas concentration gradients, (2) spatial light control, and (3) established automated liquid handling. The parallel gaseous, aqueous, and light control provided by the platform is compatible with multiparameter experiments across the life sciences. The platform is applied to measure biological effects in over 700 treatments in a five‐parameter full factorial study with the microalgae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Further, the CO2 response of multicellular organisms, Lemna gibba and Artemia salina under surfactant and nanomaterial stress are tested with the platform.

Biological Responses to Climate Change and Nanoplastics Are Altered in Concert: Full-Factor Screening Reveals Effects of Multiple Stressors on Primary Producers

“…Briefly, as previously described elsewhere, to generate CO 2 concentration gradient, we sandwiched an aerogel monolith between an acrylic layer with source and sink channels and a backplate. The well plates loaded with various sample mixtures were interfaced with the aerogel gradient generator.…”

Influence of the Hypercapnic Tumor Microenvironment on the Viability of Hela Cells Screened by a CO2-Gradient-Generating Device

“…The design of the aerogel-based gas-gradient-generating apparatus was mainly followed by our previous study, where the experimental system was adopted for the full-factorial evaluation of the effects of microorganisms in response to multiple interacting environmental stressors. , As shown in Figure , the device consisted of an aerogel monolith and a standard 96-well plate sandwiched between an acrylic layer with source and sink channels and an acrylic backplate. The acrylic plates were designed in AutoCAD and fabricated using laser engraving for the top layer and laser cutting for the bottom plate.…”

A common contaminant shifts impacts of climate change on a plant-microbe mutualism: effects of temperature, CO2and leachate from tire wear particles

“…We used an experimental device for our multi-stressor and fully factorial experiment that was based on previously reported designs applying CO 2 gradients over multi-well plates (Nguyen et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2020). Here, we included orthogonal temperature manipulation, added gas delivery tubes to allow internal lighting, improved the CO 2 concentration control system, and humidified the air (see Figure S2, for a graphical representation).…”

“…We humidified CO 2 -rich air and ambient air in separate hand-assembled bubble humidifiers, which forced gas into water-submerged airstones. Finally, we pumped (Pawfly Adjustable Air Pump 4-LPM) humidified CO 2 -rich air and ambient air into opposite sides of each aerogel bar, developing a spatially linear gradient of CO 2 concentration (Nguyen et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2020) from 1,000 to 400 ppm (across ranges from RCP8.5, USGCRP et al, 2017).…”

“…Scripts will also be accessible on Github. Nguyen et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2020). Then, both this mix and air (green) were humidified and delivered to the plate on opposite sides, and an even gradient was generated with an aerogel.…”