A software tool for the analysis of C. elegans electropharyngeograms (EPG) (Poster)

Andrianakis, I., Dillon, J.C., Mitchell, P., Mould, R., Glautier, S., O'Connor, V., Holden-Dye, L. and James, C.J. (2008) A software tool for the analysis of C. elegans electropharyngeograms (EPG) (Poster). Neuronal Development Synaptic Function and Behaviour C. Elegans Topic Meeting 2, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA. 28 Jun - 01 Jul 2008.

Abstract

Electropharyngeograms (EPG), first established in the group of Leon Avery, are extracellular recordings of the pharyngeal network and provide a readout of both neural and muscular activity. Analysis of EPGs in wild-type and mutant worms has made a significant contribution to the understanding of the molecular and genetic regulation of neural network activity and muscle excitability. In order to facilitate this and allow for higher throughput, and more discrete analysis, we have developed a software tool for the analysis of EPG recordings. Its two main features are, firstly, the automatic detection of pumps, and events within pumps, of an EPG recording, and secondly, the ability to statistically analyse the information acquired at the detection stage. Based on a tailor made signal processing algorithm, the proposed software can detect automatically peaks in the different features of the EPG including those that report the contraction and relaxation of the muscle (the E and R phases, respectively) and those that report the activity of excitatory and inhibitory pharyngeal neurones (the MC spike and the M3 potentials, respectively). Verification of the results by a trained human observer indicates high levels of accuracy. The results of the automatic detection algorithm can also be manually modified, so that alternative interpretations of ambiguous segments of the recordings can be facilitated. Given an annotation of the events within the pumps of the EPG, obtained automatically or otherwise, a statistical analysis of the results is then possible, which is known to be a laborious procedure when performed manually. Information about factors such as pump rate, pump duration, groups of pumps, and number of peaks in each of the E, P and R phases can be readily extracted. While a basic statistical analysis of the above information is possible within the scope of the developed software, its exportation is also possible for further processing with powerful data analysis packages (e.g. Excel, SPSS), that can yield observations about the data set that are not apparent with a mere visual inspection of the recordings. This method allows for a robust, objective and relatively fast definition of pharyngeal phenotypes.

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