[
Front Toxicol,
2022]
Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a model organism widely used to evaluate the mechanistic aspects of toxicants with the potential to predict responses comparable to those of mammals. We report here the consequences of developmental lead (Pb) exposure on behavioral responses to ethanol (EtOH) in C. elegans. In addition, we present data on morphological alterations in the dopamine (DA) synapse and DA-dependent behaviors aimed to dissect the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie the relationship between these neurotoxicants. Finally, the escalation to superior animals that parallels the observed effects in both experimental models with references to EtOH metabolism and oxidative stress is also discussed. Overall, the literature revised here underpins the usefulness of C. elegans to evidence behavioral responses to a combination of neurotoxicants in mechanistic-orientated studies.
[
Environ Pollut,
2013]
To improve risk estimates at the screening stage of Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA), short duration bioassays tailored to undisturbed soil cores from the contaminated site could be useful. However, existing standardized bioassays use disturbed soil samples and often pH sensitive organisms. This is a problem as naturally acidic soils are widespread. Changing soil properties to suit the test organism may change metal bioavailability, leading to erroneous risk estimates. For bioassays in undisturbed soil cores to be effective, species able to withstand natural soil properties must be identified. This review presents a critical examination of bioassay species' tolerance of acidic soils and sensitivity to metal contaminants such as Pb and Zn. Promising organisms include; Dendrobaena octaedra, Folsomia candida, Caenorhabditis elegans, Oppia nitens, Brassica rapa, Trifolium pratense, Allium cepa, Quercus rubra and Acer rubrum. The MetSTICK test and the Bait lamina test were also identified as suitable microorganism tests.
[
Methods Cell Biol,
1995]
ACeDB (A Caenorhabditis elegans Data Base) is a data management and display system that contains a wide range of genomic and other information about C. elegans. This chapter provides an overview of ACeDB for the C. elegans user, focusing in particular on the Macintosh version Macace. Previous reviews of AceDB include those of Thierry-Mieg and Durbin (1992) and Durbin and Thierry-Mieg (1994), which describe the general properties of the whole system, and that by Dunham et al. (1994), which discussed the use of AceDB for physical map data collection and assembly. ACeDB was developed by Jean Thierry-Mieg and Richard Durbin primarily for the C. elegans project, when the genomic sequencing project was just beginning in 1990. The original aim was to create a single database that integrated the genetic and physical maps with both genomic sequence data and the literature references. The forerunner of ACeDB was the program CONTIG9 (Sulston et al., 1988), which was developed to maintain and edit the physical map. CONTIG9 served researchers around the world by providing critical on-line access to the current physical map as it was being constructed (Coulson et al., 1986). This policy of immediate access allowed members of the worm community to see the same data as the people making the map, and proved very successful in maximizing use of the map. The same approach was adopted as a template for ACeDB. These two principles, developing a comprehensive database for all types of genomic and related data and providing public access to the data in the same form as used by the data-collecting laboratories, have continued to underlie developments of ACeDB. Over the last 5 years, a wide range of genome projects relating to other organisms have taken the ACeDB program and used it to develop databases for their own data. ACeDB has been used both in public projects designed to redistribute public data in a coordinated fashion and laboratory-based projects for collecting new data. Others, such as the C. elegans ACeDB, have used the database for both purposes. The reason it has been possible to adapt ACeDB so widely is that its flexible data structure allows new types of objects and new types of information about these objects to be added easily. This chapter describes (1) how to obtain ACeDB and documentation for it, (2) how to access and use the information in ACeDB, and (3) how to use ACeDB as a laboratory-based data managing system. Some of what we discuss is specific to the nematode database, but other information applies to the basic computer software program and, hence, to any database using the ACeDB program.