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Enhanced Caenorhabditis elegans Locomotion in a Structured Microfluidic Environment
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Behavioral studies of Caenorhabditis elegans traditionally are done on the smooth surface of agar plates, but the natural habitat of C. elegans and other nematodes is the soil, a complex and structured environment. In order to investigate how worms move in such environments, we have developed a technique to study C. elegans locomotion in microstructures fabricated from agar. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: When placed in open, liquid-filled, microfluidic chambers containing a square array of posts, we discovered that worms are capable of a novel mode of locomotion, which combines the fast gait of swimming with the more efficient movements of crawling. When the wavelength of the worms matched the periodicity of the post array, the microstructure directed the swimming and increased the speed of C. elegans ten-fold. We found that mutants defective in mechanosensation (mec-4, mec-10) or mutants with abnormal waveforms (unc-29) did not perform this enhanced locomotion and moved much more slowly than wild-type worms in the microstructure. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: These results show that the microstructure can be used as a behavioral screen for mechanosensory and uncoordinated mutants. It is likely that worms use mechanosensation in the movement and navigation through heterogeneous environments.
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“In particular, arrays of microfluidic posts (“artificial dirt”) have recently been developed specifically for this purpose (Lockery et al., 2008; Park et al., 2008).”
From Gait Modulation in C. elegans: An Integrated Neuromechanical Model (2012) · cites this paper as Park et al., 2008
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“We find that the model copes well with these environments, producing remarkably realistic locomotion when compared to the reported behavior (Lockery et al., 2008; Park et al., 2008).”
From Gait Modulation in C. elegans: An Integrated Neuromechanical Model (2012) · cites this paper as Park et al., 2008
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“Specifically, as in the experiments, the model yields crawling behavior in the hexagonal post configuration (Movies S3–S5 in Supplementary Material; Lockery et al., 2008) and swimming like motion in the cubic configuration (Movie S6 in Supplementary Material; Park et al., 2008).”
From Gait Modulation in C. elegans: An Integrated Neuromechanical Model (2012) · cites this paper as Park et al., 2008
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Metadata
- Authors
- Park, S., Hwang, H., Nam, S.-W., Martinez, F., Austin, R. H., & Ryu, W. S.
- Affiliations
- Ewha Womans University (KR)
- Princeton University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ryu, William S.
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2008-06-25
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- e2550
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2430527
- OpenAlex
- W1980172171
- Cited by
- 157
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 3.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Korea Science and Engineering Foundation
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cell Biology › Cellular Mechanics and Interactions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Condensed Matter Physics › Micro and Nano Robotics
- Keywords
- Caenorhabditis elegans, locomotion, swimming, crawling, mechanosensing, mec-4, mec-10, soil environment
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Locomotion, Caenorhabditis elegans, Microfluidics
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