HeALTH: An Automated Platform for Long-term Longitudinal Studies of Whole Organisms under Precise Environmental Control

Abstract

Health and longevity in all organisms are strongly influenced by the environment. To fully understand how environmental factors interact with genetic and stochastic factors to modulate the aging process, it is crucial to precisely control environmental conditions for long-term studies. In the commonly used model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, existing assays for healthspan and lifespan have inherent limitations, making it difficult to perform large-scale, longitudinal aging studies under precise environmental control. To address this constraint, we developed the Health and Lifespan Testing Hub (HeALTH), an automated, microfluidic-based system for robust, long-term, longitudinal behavioral monitoring. Our system provides spatiotemporal environmental control. We demonstrate health and lifespan studies under a variety of genetic and environmental perturbations while observing how individuality plays a role in the aging process. This system is generalizable beyond aging research for C. elegans, particularly for short-or long-term behavioral assays, and is also possible to be adapted for other model systems.

A portable, low-cost device for precise control of specimen temperature under stereomicroscopes

“…Temperature shifts to the restrictive temperature, 26°C, were induced as either "long" or "short" upshifts [10]. For the long upshift, 9 late stage L4s were transferred to a 26°C incubator and dissected as young adults to retrieve embryos 4hrs later. For the short upshift, young gravid hermaphrodites were picked to a prewarmed plate in under 30sec, a timer was started, and the plate was incubated for 5min at 26°C before embryos were retrieved by dissection.…”

“…Consequently, experiments involving living samples will be optimized by precise control of the thermal environment. In some cases, engineering near-complete and automated control over the thermal environment has allowed new access into testing hypotheses about environmental variables, for example on health and lifespan [9].…”

A portable, low-cost device for precise control of specimen temperature under stereomicroscopes

“…Consequently, experiments involving living samples will be optimized by precise control of the thermal environment. In some cases, engineering near-complete and PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230241 March 11, 2020 1 / 13 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 automated control over the thermal environment has allowed new access into testing hypotheses about environmental variables, for example on health and lifespan [9]. To facilitate precise and convenient control of biological sample temperature, we developed a portable device that can be used independently or with any stereomicroscope.…”