Would a conventionally (e.g., non-microfluidic photolithography fabricated) small hypoxia chamber be suitable in place of a microfluidic fabricated hypoxia chamber for a C. elegans acute hypoxia (1-2hr) assay?
What I am asking is weather a device I make out of plexiglass or glass parts would be suitable for creating hypoxic conditions for C. elegans for a 1-2hr assay with a pre-mixed gas mixture, and would there be a compelling physics/engineering reason why this would **not** work in respect to the gas flow in the interior chamber and creating hypoxic conditions?
The interior chamber volume would increase from 90 μL (microliters) to 9mL so a 10000% volume increase from a microfluidics device (Grey, 2004), but I have pre-mixed gas mixture available so this would just be an increase in the volume of the chamber and not the flow rate once a continuous flow of 1ml/min at 1atm (~14psi) in the device is established and the outflow analyzed and validated with an oxygen meter.
Based on a literature search and finding a paper from Dr. Bergmann’s lab (Grey et al, 2004 Article Oxygen sensation and social feeding mediated by a C. elegans...
) where they used a (PDMS epoxy e.g., Dow SYLGARD 182/184) they fabricated device on a petri dish with C. elegans worms to create an oxygen gradient.
From your handwriting, it is not clear about specs, but my generic answer would be to take a look at anything that may interfere with the airflow. If you are using liquid culture, you may want to wait until the hypoxia occurs in the liquid but not within the air chamber. There are ways to go wrong. If you have anything very specific, you may want to ask Bargmann lab or anybody who did a similar experiment.
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