AUTHOR=Mulcahy Ben , Witvliet Daniel , Holmyard Douglas , Mitchell James , Chisholm Andrew D. , Meirovitch Yaron , Samuel Aravinthan D. T. , Zhen Mei TITLE=A Pipeline for Volume Electron Microscopy of the Caenorhabditis elegans Nervous System JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neural Circuits VOLUME=12 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neural-circuits/articles/10.3389/fncir.2018.00094 DOI=10.3389/fncir.2018.00094 ISSN=1662-5110 ABSTRACT=

The “connectome,” a comprehensive wiring diagram of synaptic connectivity, is achieved through volume electron microscopy (vEM) analysis of an entire nervous system and all associated non-neuronal tissues. White et al. (1986) pioneered the fully manual reconstruction of a connectome using Caenorhabditis elegans. Recent advances in vEM allow mapping new C. elegans connectomes with increased throughput, and reduced subjectivity. Current vEM studies aim to not only fill the remaining gaps in the original connectome, but also address fundamental questions including how the connectome changes during development, the nature of individuality, sexual dimorphism, and how genetic and environmental factors regulate connectivity. Here we describe our current vEM pipeline and projected improvements for the study of the C. elegans nervous system and beyond.