The Wiggleometer: Measuring Larval Movement in a 96 Well Format

Abstract

There has been relatively little progress in the area of high throughput screening for antiparasitic animal health targets, which involve whole organisms such as Haemonchus contortus and Caenorhabditis elegans. Most assays involve identifying compounds that can paralyze and/or kill the organism. A major impediment has been the lack of instrumentation suitable for automating the read-out of these assays. We have developed an automated reader that makes analysis of antiparasitic animal health assays possible. This reader uses computer vision techniques to determine whether or not there is larval motion in each well. The system has been validated by measuring the dose-response relationships for several nematocidal agents and by examining 1040 wells of H. contortus, with a 94.6%/94% concordance rate with a human reader with less than a 0.3% false negative rate.