An imaging and analysis toolset for the study of Caenorhabditis elegans neurodevelopment

摘要

How an entire nervous system develops remains mysterious. We have developed a light-sheet microscope system to examine neurodevelopment in C. elegans embryos. Our system creates overlapping light sheets from two orthogonally positioned objectives, enabling imaging from the first cell division to hatching (～14 hours) with 350 nm isotropic resolution. We have also developed computer algorithms to computationally straighten nematode embryos, facilitating data comparison and combination from multiple animals. We plan to use these tools to create an atlas showing the position and morphology of all neurons in the developing embryo.