MAPLE (Modular Automated Platform for Large-scale Experiments), a robot for integrated organism-handling and phenotyping
Abstract
Lab organisms are valuable in part because of large-scale experiments like screens, but performing such experiments over long time periods by hand is arduous and error-prone. Organism-handling robots could revolutionize large-scale experiments in the way that liquid-handling robots accelerated molecular biology. We developed a Modular Automated Platform for Large-scale Experiments (MAPLE), an organism-handling robot capable of conducting lab tasks and experiments, and then deployed it to conduct common experiments in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Caenorhabditis elegans, Physarum polycephalum, Bombus impatiens, and Drosophila melanogaster. Focusing on fruit flies, we developed a suite of experimental modules that permitted the automated collection of virgin females and execution of an intricate and laborious social behavior experiment. We discovered that 1) pairs of flies exhibit persistent idiosyncrasies in social behavior, which 2) require olfaction and vision, and 3) social interaction network structure is stable over days. These diverse examples demonstrate MAPLE's versatility for automating experimental biology.
Data availability
CAD files for MAPLE can be found at https://github.com/FlySorterLLC/MAPLEHardware.Control software for MAPLE including scripts for the experiments described here can be found at https://github.com/FlySorterLLC/MAPLEControlSoftware.Raw data and analysis scripts can be found at https://zenodo.org/record/1119131#.Wj7SYlQeRc.These materials are also available at http://lab.debivort.org/MAPLE.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Benjamin L de Bivort
Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund
- Benjamin L de Bivort
National Science Foundation
- Benjamin L de Bivort
Winslow Foundation
- James D Crall
James S. McDonnell Foundation
- Albert B Kao
National Institutes of Health
- Dave Zucker
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2018, Alisch et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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