Measuring the Effects of Bacteria and Chemicals on the Intestinal Permeability of Caenorhabditis elegans

This method will be helpful for basic biological studies related to the interaction between intestinal microbiota and gut health. In addition, this protocol may be used for screening potential probiotics and nutraceuticals to cure intestinal health problems, such as leaky gut syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases. This protocol uses a high-throughput imaging system to enable rapid and precise quantitative analysis of intestinal permeability in C.elegans treated with various bacteria and chemicals.

We recommend that a scientist who is not familiar with this technique limits the number of samples in order to avoid mislabeling and other mistakes. This procedure consists of many steps that require visual demonstration, such as transferring worms to 96-well plates and using the Operetta machine, as well as the Harmony software. Start by preparing 500 milliliters of sterile LB medium.