Immobilization of Live Caenorhabditis elegans Individuals Using an Ultra-thin Polydimethylsiloxane Microfluidic Chip with Water Retention

One advantage of this protocol is that the worm sheet is easy to handle. The sheet has features that prevent drying, enabling us to conduct microbeam irradiation to living animals, perform several behavioral assays, and long-term observation. The microfluidic channels in this worm sheet are open, making it easier to collect animals.

These worm sheets can also be used repeatedly, making them more economical. When we were developing this technique, we wanted to irradiate only a part of the animals with a microbeam under a microscope. So we needed clear, very thin chips capable of holding the animals.