C. elegans Maintenance

Overview

Ceanorhabditis elegans has been, and is still, used to great success as a model organism for studying a variety of developmental, genetic, molecular and even physical phenomena. In order to use C. elegans to its full potential, proper care and attention to the basic maintenance of this powerful organism is essential.

In this video you will learn the basic housing and feeding requirements of C. elegans, how to correctly handle and manipulate worms using a worm pick and how to freeze and recover important worm stocks. Towards the end of the video we will visit a few applications of modifying the housing, feeding and manipulation of these important animals.

Procedure

Correct care and maintenance of Caenorhabditis elegans is essential for successful experiments.

They require very little space, are cheap to house, have high fecundity, and are easy to manipulate. But just because they are simple to keep around does not mean wimpy science. In fact, Sydney Brenner famously called C. elegans "Nature’s gift to science," and since its introduction in 1974 the worm has been featured in a number of Nobel prize winning experiments.

In this video we will d