Measuring the Effects of Bacteria on C. Elegans Behavior Using an Egg Retention Assay

Summary

An egg-in-worm (EIW) assay is a useful method to quantify egg-laying behavior. Alterations in egg laying can be a behavioral response of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans to potentially harmful environmental substances such as those produced by pathogenic bacteria.

Abstract

C. elegans egg-laying behavior is affected by environmental cues such as osmolarity¹ and vibration². In the total absence of food C. elegans also cease egg-laying and retain fertilized eggs in their uterus³. However, the effect of different sources of food, especially pathogenic bacteria and particularly Enterococcus faecalis, on egg-laying behavior is not well characterized. The egg-in-worm (EIW) assay is a useful tool to quantify the effects of different types of bacteria, in this case E. faecalis, on egg- laying behavior.

EIW assays involve counting the number of eggs retained in the uterus of C. elegans⁴. The EIW assay involves bleaching staged, gravid adult C. elegans to remove the cuticle and separate the retained eggs from the animal. Prior to bleaching, worms are exposed to bacteria (or any type of environmental cue) for a fixed period of time. After bleaching, one is very easily able to count the number of eggs retained inside the uterus of the worms. In this assay, a quantifiable increase in egg retention after E. faecalis exposure can be easily measured. The EIW assay is a behavioral assay that may be used to screen for potentially pathogenic bacteria or the presence of environmental toxins. In addition, the EIW assay may be a tool to screen for drugs that affect neurotransmitter signaling since egg-laying behavior is modulated by neurotransmitters such as serotonin and acetylcholine^5-9.

Introduction

Caenorhabditis elegans, a microscopic, free-living roundworm, is a model organism traditionally used to study developmental and cell signaling processes because of its transparent anatomy, well-characterized development, fully-sequenced genome, short generation-time, and genetic homology to humans. More recently, C. elegans has become a model organism in the field of environmental toxicology and innate immunity^{10, 11}.

These self-fertilizing hermaphroditic worms become sexually mature within two to three days of hatching from the egg. During its life cycle, C. elegans passes through four larva....

Protocol

1) Preparation of Nematode Growth Media (NGM)

1. To make 50 plates, add 1.5 g NaCl, 8.5 g Ultrapure Agar, and 1.25 g peptone to a 1 L flask.
2. Add 487.5 ml of dH₂O to flask. Swirl gently to mix and cover opening of flask with a piece of aluminum foil.
3. Sterilize the solution by autoclaving at standard conditions (121 psi, 120 °C, 20 min).
4. Allow the solution to cool to 45 °C in a water bath.
5. To the solution, add the following in order: 500 µl cholesterol from a 5 mg/ml stock solution (dissolved in ethanol), 500 µl 1 M CaCl₂, 500 µl 1 M MgSO₄, and 12.5 ml KPO₄

Results

This assay allows one to quantify the number of retained eggs within C. elegans after exposure to E. faecalis. L4 staged worms (characterized by transparent open space above their vulva, Figure 1) were exposed to E. faecalis through adulthood. After forty hours of exposure to E. faecalis, bleaching was performed. As the cuticle disintegrated in the bleach droplet, the eggs became more apparent (Figure 2). The number of retained eggs was easily quantifi.......

Discussion

The most critical steps in successfully performing this assay are: 1) using well-fed stocks of C. elegans, 2) culturing single types of bacteria on the assay plate, 3) accurately identifying staged L4 worms for exposure to E. faecalis, 4) keeping exposure time to E. faecalis consistent across all trials and 5) bleaching time should not exceed ten minutes to prevent egg disintegration.

For this assay it is important to pick healthy, well-fed worms. Maternal starvation.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Agar, ultrapure	Affymetrix	10906
Bacto Peptone	Becton Dickinson	211677
Bacto Tryptone	Becton Dickinson	211705
Brain Heart Infusion dehydrated medium	Carolina Biological Supply	781781
C. elegans, N2 strain	Caenorhabditis Genetics Center		http://www.cbs.umn.edu/cgc
Cholesterol	Alfa Aesar	A11470
Culture plates for C. elegans	Tritech Research Inc.	T3308
Culture plates for E. faecalis	Fisher Scientific-Fisherbrand	875713
E. coli (OP50)	Caenorhabditis Genetics Center		http://www.cbs.umn.edu/cgc
E. faecalis strains			provided by J. Middleton. All isolates were confirmed as enterococci
by observing growth on enterococcosel agar (BBL) and in 6% NaCl broth;
all strains grew at 44.5 ºC and were catalase negative and hydrolyzed esculin. A simplified dichotomous key based on pigmentation and fermentation reactions for six sugars (arabinose, mannitol, methyl-α-D-glucopyranoside (MGP), ribose, sorbose and sorbitol) allowed presumptive identification of all E. faecalis strains (Efs lacks pigmentation and is arabinose, MGP and sorbose negative and sorbitol, mannitol and ribose positive). All presumptive Efs strains were confirmed using the API 20 STREP system (Biomerieux).
Microscope	Motic	SMZ 168B	any microscope with transmitted illumination and 50X magnification should be sufficient
Streptomycin sulfate	Fisher BioReagents	BP910-50
Tryptic Soy Agar (Soybean-Casein Digest Agar Medium), Difco	Becton Dickinson	236950
Trypticase Soy Broth (Soybean-Casein Digest Medium), BBL	Becton Dickinson	211768
Yeast extract	Acros	61180-1000