Worm Breeder's Gazette 4(1): 17b
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.
I have observed that treatment of worms with the anesthetic propylene phenoxytol allows them to take up dyes into somatic tissues. Worms were fed 100 g/ml of Hoechst 33258 or ethidium bromide and then treated with 1:500 propylene phenoxytol in the presence of the dye. After fifteen minutes the worms are removed from the anesthetic. They recover in about 15 minutes and can be observed with the fluorescence microscope to have most of their somatic nuclei labelled. They are beautiful to watch. I do not know if these labelling conditions are optimal or how long the worms will live and remain stained. Presumably other dyes or drugs or substrates would get in too. Unfortunately, these conditions do not label the gonad. If anyone finds a way to get non-lipophilic labels into the gonad of an intact worm, please let me know.