A scalable culturing system for the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Kuehn, E., Stockinger, A. W., Girard, J., Raible, F., & Özpolat, B. D. A scalable culturing system for the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii. Plos One, 14(12), (2019): e0226156, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226156.
Platynereis dumerilii is a marine segmented worm (annelid) with externally fertilized embryos and it can be cultured for the full life cycle in the laboratory. The accessibility of embryos and larvae combined with the breadth of the established molecular and functional techniques has made P. dumerilii an attractive model for studying development, cell lineages, cell type evolution, reproduction, regeneration, the nervous system, and behavior. Traditionally, these worms have been kept in rooms dedicated for their culture. This allows for the regulation of temperature and light cycles, which is critical to synchronizing sexual maturation. However, regulating the conditions of a whole room has limitations, especially if experiments require being able to change culturing conditions. Here we present scalable and flexible culture methods that provide ability to control the environmental conditions, and have a multi-purpose culture space. We provide a closed setup shelving design with proper light conditions necessary for P. dumerilii to mature. We also implemented a standardized method of feeding P. dumerilii cultures with powdered spirulina which relieves the ambiguity associated with using frozen spinach, and helps standardize nutrition conditions across experiments and across different labs. By using these methods, we were able to raise mature P. dumerilii, capable of spawning and producing viable embryos for experimentation and replenishing culture populations. These methods will allow for the further accessibility of P. dumerilii as a model system, and they can be adapted for other aquatic organisms.
BDO received funding from Hibbitt Startup Funds. FR received funding from projects P30035, and I2972, by Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.