The OptoGenBox – a device for long-term optogenetics in C. elegans

Abstract

She works in the group of Prof. Bringmann with a focus on sleep in C. elegans. She received a Bachelor degree in physics from Princeton University, USA, in 2016. After that she started her PhD work in Prof. Bringmann's lab at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. The lab moved to Marburg, Germany, in May 2019, where she since then conducts her research and finishes her PhD projects. Florian Jordan works as an electronics technician for the electronics service at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. He finished his occasional training there in 2014 and since then he develops and repairs electrical equipment for research groups. In 2016 he received the CID certification, following this he started to study to become a statecertified technician.

A sleep-active neuron can promote survival while sleep behavior is disturbed

“…Optogenetic tools like ReaChR typically display a brief photocurrent peak activity within the first second of light exposure and then plateau at a lower photocurrent level for an extended period of time [66]. We previously used ReaChR to establish long-term optogenetic manipulations in C. elegans [23]. To test for the activation of RIS during prolonged optogenetic activation, we activated ReaChR in RIS with orange light for 11h and followed the activity of RIS using GCaMP and measured mobility of the larvae that were kept inside microfluidic chambers.…”

“…We regularly took a sample of the larvae from the liquid culture and measured two different readouts. We first measured starvation survival by scoring the fraction of animals that had survived and secondly, we scored the ability of starved animals to recover and develop to the adult stage after refeeding [12, 23, 24, 36]. RIS::twk-18gf larvae showed strongly reduced starvation survival by about half compared to the wild type.…”

“…RIS impairment has been shown to confer a reduction of survival in both liquid culture and in microfluidic chambers [12, 23, 24, 36]. Worms were synchronized by bleaching [17].…”

“…RIS is a GABAergic and peptidergic interneuron that activates during sleep, and its ablation virtually abolishes sleep behavior [16][17][18][19]. Optogenetic manipulations showed that acute depolarization of RIS inhibits wakefulness activity such as feeding and locomotion [16,19], whereas hyperpolarization inhibits sleep and shortens survival [10,[20][21][22]. RIS is required for sleep during various stages and conditions [10,11,16,17,19,[23][24][25][26][27].…”

Optogenetic rejuvenation of mitochondrial membrane potential extendsC. eleganslifespan

“…mtON isolates Δψ m as a single experimental variable in vivo, and requires both light activation and a cofactor, all-trans retinal (ATR), for proton pumping activity [9]. C. elegans do not produce ATR endogenously, allowing for control conditions of light exposure alone (which can be damaging [10]), mtON protein expression alone, and ATR supplementation alone (which does not affect lifespan or physiology, Supplementary Table 1 and [11]). Only animals supplemented with ATR and illuminated will have mtON activity and increased Δψ m (Supplementary Figure 1) [9].…”