Worm Breeder's Gazette 13(2): 12a (February 1, 1994)

These abstracts should not be cited in bibliographies. Material contained herein should be treated as personal communication and should be cited as such only with the consent of the author.

Easiest Worm Plate Medium

Eric Lambie, Department of Biology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755.

In my abstract for the '93 C. elegans meeting, I provided the recipe for Flo Youngren's EZ worm mix. Since then, I have come up with a better formulation, which has less salt (for superior lawn consistency) and does not include yeast extract. These plates have three main advantages over conventional NGM plates: 1 ) Annoying salt crystals do not readily form 2) No stock solutions need to be added after autoclaving, and 3) There is minimal fuss and/or room for error when undergraduate assistants make up the plates.

Here is the recipe for MYOB (Modified Youngren's, Only Bacto-peptone). For 100 liters of plates: Combine 55 g Tris-CI (Sigma reagent grade), 24 g Tris-OH (Sigma reagent grade), 310 g Bacto Peptone (Difco), 800 mg Cholesterol and 200 g NaCI. Mix thoroughly and be sure to avoid chunks; this powdered mixture can be stored for many months prior to use. Dissolve 5.9 g in 1 liter of water, add 20 g of agar and autoclave.