Pungaliya, Chirag et al. (2009) International Worm Meeting "Systematic identification of steroids in Caenorhabditis elegans."

Pungaliya, Chirag, Wollam, Joshua, Antebi, Adam, Seim, Kristen, Schroeder, Frank, Malik, Rabia, Bethke, Axel

[International Worm Meeting, 2009]

Recently Motola et. al. identified the dafachronic acids, bile-acid like steroids that act as the endogenous ligands of the nuclear hormone receptor DAF-12. They directly bind to DAF-12 to influence interactions with its cofactors and thereby regulate transcriptional activity. It is possible that other endogenous steroids influence DAF-12 or act on other nuclear hormone receptors that modulate various C. elegans life history traits. We have begun a systematic analysis of C. elegans steroid metabolism based on chromatographic separation, bioassays and differential analysis by 2D NMR spectroscopy (DANS), comparing the wild-type metabolome to that of mutants with suspected defects in steroid metabolism. So far our investigations have revealed several steroids whose presence in C. elegans had not previously been recognized.