MAPLE (Modular Automated Platform for Large-scale Experiments), a robot for integrated organism-handling and phenotyping

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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

Tom Alisch

Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
James D Crall

Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8981-3782
Albert B Kao

Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Dave Zucker

FlySorter LLC, Seattle, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Benjamin L de Bivort

Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States

For correspondence
debivort@oeb.harvard.edu

Competing interests
Benjamin L de Bivort, Benjamin de Bivort is on the scientific advisory board of FlySorter, LLC..

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6165-7696

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

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.