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

ABSTRACT:

Background

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.

New method

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.

Results

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 e

SUBMITTER: Winbush A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4821420 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature