Figure 1
Basic design and description of the NemaLife chip. (a) A 9-chamber microfluidic device for lifelong studies of crawling C. elegans. Fluid manipulation is performed with 1-mL syringes connected to the ports in the device. Scale bar 1 cm. (b) Design and features of the NemaLife device filled with green dye. Habitat arena is composed of micropillars. Channel at the top (blue arrow) is the worm loading port, the two red arrows on both sides of the device identify the sieve channel that retains worms, two black arrows indicate the reagent exchange ports and the two dashed blue arrows are for purging air pockets. Scale bar 1 mm. (c) An enlarged view of the micropillars and their lattice arrangement. Scale bar 200 µm. (d) The sieve channels consist of rectangular barriers 750 µm × 75 µm separated by a gap of 25–30 µm. Scale bar 200 µm.
