Biophysical analysis of drug efficacy on C. elegans models for neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases

Caenorhabditis elegans has emerged as a powerful model organism for drug screening due to its cellular simplicity, genetic amenability and homology to humans combined with its small size and low cost. Currently, high-throughput drug screening assays are mostly based on image-based phenotyping with the focus on morphological-descriptive traits not exploiting key locomotory parameters of this multicellular model with muscles such as its thrashing force, a critical biophysical parameter when screening drugs for muscle-related diseases. In this study, we demonstrated the use of a micropillar-based force assay chip in combination with a fluorescence assay to evaluate the efficacy of various drugs currently used in treatment of neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases. Using this two-dimensional approach, we showed that the force assay was generally more sensitive in measuring efficacy of drug treatment in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Parkinson's Disease mutant worms as well as partly in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis model. These results underline the potential of our force assay chip in screening of potential drug candidates for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases when combined with a fluorescence assay in a two-dimensional analysis approach.

An integrated microfluidics for assessing the anti-aging effect of caffeic acid phenethylester in Caenorhabditis elegans

Aging is a fundamental and fascinating process. Anti-aging research tried to find the mysteries about the human lifespan. To investigate the longevity-extending role of caffeic acid phenethylester (CAPE) and reveal the possible regulation mechanism, the long-term cultivation under well-defined environments, real-time monitoring, and live imaging is highly desired. In this paper, a well-designed microfluidic device was proposed to analyze the anti-aging effect of CAPE in Caenorhabditis elegans. With the combined use of multiple functional units, including micro-pillar, worm responder, a branching network of distribution channels, and microchambers, the longitudinal measurements of the exact number of worms throughout the whole lifespans is possible. Meanwhile, the brief cooling function of temperature-controllable system can achieve temporary and repeated immobilization of nematodes for fluorescence imaging. Our research data showed that CAPE can increase the survival of worms under normal and stress condition, including heat stress and paraquat-induced oxidative stress. The further studies revealed the anti-aging mechanism of CAPE. This proposed strategy and device would be a useful platform to facilitate future anti-aging studies and the finding of new lead compounds.