C. elegans Strain Maintenance and Storage Service
The invertebrate Caenorhabditis elegans is a small nematode and was brought to the lab by Sydney Brenner over 50 years ago. The nematode is now widely used as a model system for many fundamental biological studies because of its unique characteristics and many experimental advantages. Many key features that have made C. elegans an attractive model include: a short life cycle, the transparency of the body, a completely defined developmental cell lineage, ease of cultivation, availability of large sets of mutants and the absence of ethical issues. In addition, despite the nematode being considered a simple organism, many of the genes and pathways are observed within the more complex organisms, including humans. All these superiorities have enabled the worms to become an extremely versatile model system used to study genetic mechanisms, energy metabolism, immunity, aging and screening studies. Therefore, it is not surprising that a growing number of studies employ the C. elegans model system to do relevant research.
Service offerings
Culturing C. elegans
In the laboratory, the nematodes are normally cultured on agar plates within a lawn of the bacterium Escherichia coli. The optimal culture temperature should be between 16°C and 25°C, and most typically at 20°C. The growth of C. elegans is susceptible to temperature and the variation in growth periods can be utilized to design experiments. When food is depleted, the animals will utilize their fat supply. Following an arrest of development, the worms can survive for at least a month during the stasis. However, worms can resume their development when they move to the new bacteria. Here, we offer the service with strict culturing C. elegans on petri plates or in liquid medium. It is necessary to point out that there are transcriptomic and phenotypical responses to the shifts between solid and liquid culturing and the issue is often overlooked. Moreover, the liquid setting of C. elegans has been commonly used in toxicology and pharmacology studies.
Automatic selection of C. elegans with desired characteristics
In order to facilitate biochemical studies of our customers, we provide the COPAS platform for customers to quickly select large quantities of individual worms with desired characteristics. The worm automatic sorting system can greatly improve separation efficiency, and realize the complete large-scale sample separation within viability and integrity of C. elegans. Besides, the 24,48,96 or 384-well plates are available to the system as well as customized sorting. The principle of the system is to detect the corresponding optical signal of the sample and perform an automatic sorting without subjective factors. Therefore, the sorting is more objective, scientific and accurate.
Freezing and recovery of C. elegans stocks
One unique chacteristic of C. elegans is that the worm populations can be frozen for several years and revived when needed, although some mutant strains and wild-type animals can not survive freezing. Here we offer two protocols for customer off-site backup storage of their most valuable strains with correct staging: C. elegans storage with a Liquid Freezing Solution or Soft Agar Freezing Solution. Liquid Freezing Solution is useful for the long-term storage of stocks in liquid nitrogen. And for freezing working stocks of C. elegans at −80°C, Soft Agar Freezing Solution is recommended. Both of the protocols can safely store the worms for many years, but the recovery rate of those stored at −80°C for many years (>10yrs) is not as high as those in liquid nitrogen.
Freezing C. elegans using Liquid Freezing Solution
CD BioSciences is a professional C. elegans model service provider. Here, we offer C. elegans strain maintenance services to help our customers to preserve their precious strains and maintain the worms healthy when there's an emergency. And we will package and ship the worms as soon as possible when our customers are ready to resume their experiments. With advanced platform, experienced technicians, and strict experimental procedure, we guarantee our customers high-quality service. If you have needs in this area, please contact us for more details. We are looking forward to cooperating with you!
* For research use only.
