Automated imaging for health, not death

Manual C. elegans assays cannot cope with higher demands for throughput efficiency and data reproducibility. Our technology can transform your science with:

A robust workflow for high data reproducibility
Non-invasive and exhaustive data acquisition
Versatile data processing to reveal subtle intervention effects

Traditional C. elegans assays

Measuring ageing and toxicity in C. elegans with manual lifespan assays is well-established in academic research, but their lack of throughput efficiency and data reproducibility are significant barriers to their adoption by industry. Manual C. elegans lifespans assays:

are very time-consuming, require skill and are subject to operator variation
use only a few widely-spaced timepoints
disrupt the worms and their environment at each manipulation
give single data points (live/dead) not continuous (e. g. speed) data

The Magnitude Biosciences Solution: Automated C. elegans Imaging

Our technology supports a robust and fast assay workflow. We can achieve high data reproducibility and sensitivity, thanks to:

manual preparation consistency, with a defined medium for bacterial growth and strict schedule for plate pouring, bacterial and worm culture, as well as automated imaging for standardised data acquisition and processing.
non-invasive data acquisition: no mechanical disruption, no abrupt changes in lighting or temperature.
exhaustive data acquisition: multiple culture plates with up to 50 worms on each, individual worm tracking images taken every 0.8 seconds for 160 seconds, repeated every 5 minutes up to 10 days

Analysis and Data

Bacterial folate synthesis inhibition by SMX, showing dose-dependent decline in moving worms over 14 days, with many more data points than manual lifespan assays (Virk et al., 2012; 400 worms per condition).

Exploration: Individual worm tracks over a set time period, showing control worms (left) explore more of their environment than test worms (right) (superimposed tracks of 20 worms).

Colour-coded segmentation of the worm population by speed, giving detailed age-related decline in mobility compared to average speed (400 worms per condition).

Mobility decline over 6 days of the human amyloid-beta1-42 muscle-expressing GMC101 strain, compared to the AM134 control strain (180 worms per condition, top: decline in the fraction of moving worms over time, bottom: mean moving hours for each worm over the whole time period).

Chemotaxis: Tracking of individual worms position over time from release site (green circle) to lawn site (yellow circle), to pinpoint the rapid dynamics of chemotaxis (60 worms total, collated over 4 plates of 15 worms each).