Anupom Taslim, Vanapalli Siva A
Electrical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA.
Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA.
Life (Basel). 2023 Jan 10;13(1):200. doi: 10.3390/life13010200.
The model organism is used in a variety of applications ranging from fundamental biological studies, to drug screening, to disease modeling, and to space-biology investigations. These applications rely on conducting whole-organism phenotypic assays involving animal behavior and locomotion. In this study, we report a 3D printed compact imaging platform (CIP) that is integrated with a smart-device camera for the whole-organism phenotyping of . The CIP has no external optical elements and does not require mechanical focusing, simplifying the optical configuration. The small footprint of the system powered with a standard USB provides capabilities ranging from plug-and-play, to parallel operation, and to housing it in incubators for temperature control. We demonstrate on Earth the compatibility of the CIP with different substrates, including agar plates, liquid droplets on glass slides and microfluidic chips. We validate the system with behavioral and thrashing assays and show that the phenotypic readouts are in good agreement with the literature data. We conduct a pilot study with mutants and show that the phenotypic data collected from the CIP distinguishes these mutants. Finally, we discuss how the simplicity and versatility offered by CIP makes it amenable to future investigations on the International Space Station, where science experiments are constrained by system size, payload weight and crew time. Overall, the compactness, portability and ease-of-use makes the CIP desirable for research and educational outreach applications on Earth and in space.
模式生物被用于从基础生物学研究到药物筛选、疾病建模以及太空生物学研究等各种应用中。这些应用依赖于进行涉及动物行为和运动的全生物体表型分析。在本研究中，我们报告了一种3D打印的紧凑型成像平台（CIP），它与智能设备相机集成，用于[具体生物]的全生物体表型分析。CIP没有外部光学元件，也不需要机械聚焦，简化了光学配置。该系统由标准USB供电，占地面积小，具备即插即用、并行操作以及可放置在培养箱中进行温度控制等功能。我们在地球上展示了CIP与不同底物的兼容性，包括琼脂平板、载玻片上的液滴和微流控芯片。我们通过行为和甩尾试验对系统进行了验证，结果表明表型读数与文献数据高度一致。我们对突变体进行了初步研究，结果表明从CIP收集的表型数据能够区分这些突变体。最后，我们讨论了CIP所具备的简单性和多功能性如何使其适合未来在国际空间站上进行的研究，在国际空间站上，科学实验受到系统尺寸、有效载荷重量和航天员时间的限制。总体而言，CIP的紧凑性、便携性和易用性使其适用于地球上和太空中的研究及教育推广应用。
