Worm Breeder's Gazette 5(1): 32a
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.
By maintaining C. elegans on ampicillin treated E. coli a high throughput inexpensive screen for detecting potential anthelmintics is obtained. Method: 5 mg of ampicillin and 1.7 mg nystatin are added to 10 mls of E. coli broth (Uracil requiring mutant) and 100 mls of M9 buffer and the mixture stood for 2 hrs. Multi well plates are filled with 2 mls of the mixture and substances to be tested are added in the minimum volume of water, ethanol or DMSO. Between 12 and 20 worms of mixed age are added per well and after 7 days incubation at 20 C experimental wells are compared to controls for numbers of larvae and adults and normal movement. Most benzimidazoles are detected at 1 p.p.m. with the exceptions of oxfendazole (10 p.p.m.) and thiabendazole (2.5 p.p.m.). Levamisole is detected down to 0.5 p.p.m. and avermectin Bla to 0.0005 p.p.m. At 50 p.p.m. less than 10% of random compounds are active. Although older drugs such as piperazine , bephenium, diethylcarbamazine, methyridine and santonin would be missed this is not considered to be of significance as modern drugs must be both broadspectrum and very active. The test can also probably be used to detect potential plant nematocides.