Automated identification and registration of anatomical landmarks in C. elegans

The physiology of the nematode C. elegans can be visualized with many microscopy techniques. However, quantitative microscopy of C. elegans is complicated by the flexible and deformable nature of the nematode. These differences in posture and shape must be addressed in some fashion in any automated or manual analysis. Manual approaches are time intensive and require hand-labeling anatomical regions of interest. Automated tools exist, but generally rely on high-magnification imaging using labeled nuclei as fiducial markers. Here we describe a suite of new tools that allows for high-throughput analysis of whole-body images, aligned using anatomical landmarks identified from brightfield images. We show how these tools can be used in basic morphometric tasks and examine anatomical variation and morphological changes in a population over time.