Long-term imaging of circadian locomotor rhythms of a freely crawling C. elegans population.

Locomotor activity is used extensively as a behavioral output to study the underpinnings of circadian rhythms. Recent studies have required a populational approach for the study of circadian rhythmicity in Caenorhabditis elegans locomotion. We describe an imaging system for long-term automated recording and analysis of locomotion data of multiple free-crawling C. elegans animals on the surface of an agar plate. We devised image analysis tools for measuring specific features related to movement and shape to identify circadian patterns. We demonstrate the utility of our system by quantifying circadian locomotor rhythms in wild-type and mutant animals induced by temperature cycles. We show that 13 °C:18 °C (12:12h) cycles are sufficient to entrain locomotor activity of wild-type animals, which persist but are rapidly damped during 13 °C free-running conditions. Animals with mutations in tax-2, a cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) ion channel, significantly reduce locomotor activity during entrainment and free-running. Current methods for measuring circadian locomotor activity is generally restricted to recording individual swimming animals of C. elegans, which is a distinct form of locomotion from crawling behavior generally observed in the laboratory. Our system works well with up to 20 crawling adult animals, and allows for a detailed analysis of locomotor activity over long periods of time. Our population-based approach provides a powerful tool for quantification of circadian rhythmicity of C. elegans locomotion, and could allow for a screening system of candidate circadian genes in this model organism. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Ari Winbush, Matthew Gruner, Grant W Hennig, Alexander M van der Linden. Long-term imaging of circadian locomotor rhythms of a freely crawling C. elegans population. Journal of neuroscience methods. 2015 Jul 15;249:66-74

Mesh Tags

PMID: 25911068

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