Measuring Caenorhabditis elegans Life Span on Solid Media

In order to measure lifespan in C Elgan, an age synchronized population is generated using a timed egg lang reproductively. Active adult hermaphrodite worms are transferred onto nematode growth media plates seeded with UV killed e coli allowed to lay eggs for six to eight hours and then removed over the next two days, worms hatch from these eggs and grow to the L four larval stage. The L four worms are transferred to new NGM plates containing ampicillin to prevent live bacterial contamination and FUDR to prevent reproduction and allowed to develop into adults.

From this point forward, the adult worms are observed every two to three days until all worms have died. At each time point, dead worms are removed from the plate and the number of live and dead worms recorded. I'm George Seton from the laboratory of Matt Capline in the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington.