Microfluidic device for coincident multi-exposure test on C. elegans

We developed the microfluidic device to conduct the multi-exposure test with Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) simultaneously. The proposed device has 3 chambers to expose several external stimuli on C. elegans at the same time. Each chamber has a special structure to keep C. elegans inside the chamber; a fixed-geometry check valve and a pillar array. Capacitance was measured to check the effect of external stimulus on C. elegans using a pair of electrodes. To demonstrate the capability of our device, we applied it to multi-exposure test; two heavy metal (Cr and Pb) solutions and K-medium for the control group. Total 21 of young adult stage of C. elegans were divided into three groups and loaded into each chamber for the exposure test. From this experiment, we succeeded to load and keep several worms in each chamber and to check the effect of each solution on C. elegans through the capacitance change measurement. The result indicated that our device was a viable method for the multi-exposure test on C. elegans.