Worm Breeder's Gazette 9(3): 10

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.

A Simple Method for Decontaminating Worm Stocks

J. Way and M. Chalfie

In the past, we have used the standard method for decontaminating 
stocks, which involves washing worms off a plate, spinning them in a 
centrifuge, etc The following procedure is much quicker and requires 
fewer worms. Also, it can be used to directly decontaminate the 
progeny of a mating and thus accelerate strain constructions.
Using a platinum wire with a glob of bacteria on the bottom, pick up 
several gravid adults and/or eggs from the contaminated plate and 
transfer them to a seeded plate. Then put a drop of the usual sodium 
hypochlorite solution (2-4% NaOCl, .4M NaOH) onto the eggs. About half 
of the eggs will hatch. Occasionally, a very tough bacterial 
contaminant will survive to form a few colonies, so it is wise to 
transfer the survivors on the following day.