A method for high-throughput analysis of chronological aging in Schizosaccharomyces pombe

The measurement of chronological life span (CLS) in Schizosaccharomyces pombe is traditionally performed by plating back aliquots of aging liquid cultures on solid medium and counting the number of colony-forming units (CFU). However, this method is labor and cost intensive and therefore not amenable to high-throughput screening. Here, we describe a simple method for CLS measurement using aging minicultures in microtiter plates and batch plate-back for the determination of culture viability. This assay can be used to screen a large number of strains, conditions, or compounds in parallel for effects on aging.