Worm Breeder's Gazette 4(1): 30

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.

Some Enzymatic Comparisons Between Bergerac and Bristol Strains of C. elegans

R. Ouazana

Figure 1

To compare enzymatic activities of Bergerac and Bristol strains of C.
elegans, we used the microsystem ' Api Zym ' focused by D.  Monget (
1978) and produced by the french firm API SYSTEM.  Some of these tests,
not yet commercialized, were a gift of API SYSTEM.
The technique consists in microdishes which are impregnated with 
substrate and buffer ( PH is given in the table ).  We introduced 0.1 
ml of biological suspension ( a known number of adult worms sonicated 
in buffer and resuspended in distilled water after homogenization ) in 
the microdishes which were incubated at 37 C for 4 hours.  Bacteria 
were grossly eliminated by washing; Afterwards their concentration was 
too low to give response with Api Zym.  The reactions were revealed 
colorimetrically by 4 /oo ' Fast blue BB '.  The intensity of the 
reaction is proportional to enzymatic activity and is noted from - to 
+++++ .  A reaction noted +/- refers to a low but detectable response. 
To give reliable results, all the tests were read by the same 
experimenter and enzymatic activities in Bergerac and Bristol strains 
were performed at the same time.
To date, the tests were carried out on 64 enzymatic activities.  
Most of the enzymes tested were hydrolases ( phosphatases,esterases, 
aminopeptidases, glycosidases, arylsulfatases ) and some were 
dehydrogenases.  Some of the enzymatic activities tested seem to take 
a prominent part in postembryonic development.  It's the case of 
Leucine arylamidase, which plays an important part in molting ( Rogers 
1965, 1977 ), and could be also the case of glycyl-L-proline 
arylamidase which is implicated in the metabolism of collagen.
The results are summarized in the following table.  The two strains 
show similar enzymatic spectra, but differences can be noted, which 
are localized essentially on 
:
- Trypsin ( n  8 )
- gamma L-glutamate transpeptidase ( n  38 )
- Glycyl-glycine arylamidase ( n  42 )
- L-threonine arylamidase ( n  54 )
- N-CBZ-glycyl-glycyl-L-arginine arylamidase ( n  56 )
Other differences, in a less degree, but yet detectable, are 
observed 
on:
- Alkaline Phosphatase ( n  1 )
- L-histidine arylamidase ( n  33 )
- L-leucyl-glycine arylamidase ( n  45 )
- L-ornithine arylamidase ( n  51 )
- L-serine arylamidase ( n  53 )
All the differences observed in this table have been verified in two 
repetitions, which have similar results.  But it could be argued that 
these differences could be due to nutritional adaptation, because 
these two strains, xenically cultured on the A1 medium ( for thirty 
years in case of Bergerac, and one year in the case of Bristol ) are 
associated with a different bacterial complex.  
[See Figure 1]

Figure 1