On this weeks episode of Worm-o-ween we have collected our most frequently asked questions about worms to help create a useful troubleshooting guide for you all! As always, if you have any questions that aren’t covered in this guide give us a call and we will be happy to help!
Q: I received my worm plates but cannot see the worms move around the plate?
A: Make sure you are using the correct visualization tools to observe the worms. A magnifying glass or just your eyes will not have enough magnification to see them. We suggest top illumination or bright field microscopes with 20-40X magnification. A dissecting scope with the same magnification level will also work well. If you are using the correct visualization tool and the worms seem to moving slowly, they may just need a bit of food to kick their energy back up. Make an OP50 bacterial culture as indicated in your literature and pipet around 200 uL of bacteria culture over the surface of the worm plate. Gently swirl the plate to spread culture evenly. In one or two days the worms’ activity levels should be significantly higher.
Q: When I look at my plate of worms I don’t see any worms, what should I do?
A: Do not freak out if this happens. The worms may have gone into their Dauer stage, which is a concept we covered in the last two blog posts (check the other posts for more info on this). In this stage, the worms tend to go into the agar so they are no longer visible on the surface. I would recommend feeding the worms as they are probably a bit food deprived. Pipet 200 uL of bacteria culture to the surface of the plate. The worms may take a week or two to recover properly. Feed them a bit more frequently than normal, every two or three days to get them back to an active state. If they still seem to be struggling, chunk them onto a freshly seeded NGM plate after a week of feeding them frequently.
Q: I received the worms but won’t be using them as early as I wanted to, how can I keep the worms alive until I need them?
A: These worms can live for a very long time with the proper care. I would recommend feeding the worms every 5 days and chunking every 1 to 1.5 weeks. Keeping a consistent schedule will give a predictable environment for the worms, making it easier for them to grow and stay healthy! If you need to extend the worms’ lives a lot longer than expected, you will probably need more materials to do so. We have created the Extended Worm Care Kit for this purpose! It contains NGM agar, NGM salts, OP50 bactobeads, Recovery Broth, and petri plates.
Q: The agar looks like it lost volume or is drying out. Why is this happening?
A: Since the plates are stored at room temperature, it is natural for the agar to start drying out. This is what causes the agar to lose volume. Feeding the worms regularly should help prevent this from happening, but it will still happen over time. If you notice this happening, simply chunk the worms as soon as you can. This will help keep the worms in healthy environments. They do not typically like dried out agar too much.
Q: What happens if I accident store my worm plates in the refrigerator when I receive them?
A: Unfortunately, the worms cannot survive such cold temperatures. Make sure to keep them around room temperature (16°C – 25°C). Any temperature above or below this range will not be suitable for the worms.
Q: When I have stripped the worm plate with S-buffer and let the worms settle at the bottom of a tube, it doesn’t look like many worms are present. What can I do?
A: It may not look like a lot of worms were collected, but there will be hundreds of worms at the bottom of the tube! They are very small so collectively it won’t look like a lot. It can be compared to when you centrifuge down bacteria into a pellet. It may be a small pellet but the concentration of bacteria is quite high. The worms will look like a cloudy white section at the bottom of the tube compared to the supernatant.
We hope these FAQs help you during your worm experiment. Please call us for technical assistance if you have any more questions!
Tune in next week for worm images and resources! Check out our Instagram and Facebook to find the answer to the joke of the week!
Joke of the Week: Why are worms so great to hang out with?
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