Baumanns S et al. (2022) Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Res "RNA-interference in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is effective using paraformaldehyde-inactivated E. coli HT115 bacteria as a food source."

Beis DM, Baumanns S, Wenzel U

[Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Res, 2022]

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a widely used research model for the investigation of metabolism, aging and age-associated diseases. However, when investigating the impact of natural compounds or drugs on those topics, a major confounder is the metabolism of these test substances by live E. coli bacteria, the standard food source of C. elegans. Using paraformaldehyde instead of heat to inactivate E. coli, which allows for high-throughput technologies and better food availability, it is shown here that RNA-interference works equally well, thus demonstrating the absence of considerable interfering modifications of paraformaldehyde with nucleic acids.

Edgar RS et al. (1977) Science "The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans: a new organism for intensive biological study."

Edgar RS, Wood WB

[Science, 1977]

At a recent conference in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, investigators met to discuss the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. This free-living worm may, according to some workers, become the Escherichia coli or at least the bacteriophage T4 of the animal world. Small (about 1mm in length) and semitransparent, C. elegans provides for research the advantages of a short life cycle (3 days) and a simple anatomy-it contains about 810 nongonadal nuclei. It is both easy to cultivate, on E. coli as a food source, and convenient for genetic analysis. Its genes are carried on five autosomes and a sex chromosome (X), and it has a genome size about 20 times that of E. coli. It generally reproduces as a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite (XX), but occasional males (XO), which arise by nondisjunction, permit sexual reproduction as well....