Name: Measurements of Physiological Stress Responses in C. Elegans (Video) | JoVE Journal
Uploaded: 2020-05-21T13:30:00.000+00:00
Duration: 10 min 36 s
Description: Learn to measure physiological stress responses in C. elegans using fluorescent transcriptional reporters and survival assays. This method enables high-throughput screening of genetic and pharmacological perturbations.

ai_agent_IP

ai_agent

maintenance

instantTrialDurationMinutes

isBiopharma

enableNewMyJoveSectionDesign

educationFeatures

seoMetaApi

ai_copilot_institution_blacklist

ai_chat_institution_blacklist

freeAccessWindow

ssoRoleCapture

scheduledMaintenanceBanner

joveLabsFeatures

disable_autoplay_for_bots

extended_trial_duration

5 minutes

R.BZ. is supported by the EMBO long term fellowship and The Larry L. Hillblom Foundation. R.H.S is supported by grant 5F32AG032023-02 through the National Institute of Aging (NIA) and the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research Postdoctoral Fellowship. A.F. is supported by grant F32AG051355 through the NIA. H.K.G. is supported by grant DGE1752814 through the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. M.G.M. is supported by 1F31AG060660-01 through NIA. A.D. is supported by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and 4R01AG042679-04 and 5R01AG055891-02 from NIA, and 5R01ES021667-09 from NIEHS. We thank Larry Joe, Melissa Sanchez, Naame Kelet, and Anel Esquivel for significant technical assistance. We thank the Morimoto lab and the CGC (funded by NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Program P40 OD010440) for strains.

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Here, methods to interrogate cellular stress responses in C. elegans, using fluorescent transcriptional reporters and physiological stress survival assays are described. The reporters all utilize GFP expression driven under the promoter of a downstream transcriptional target of the transcription factors involved in mounting cellular stress responses. The use of hsp-4p::GFP modulated by XBP-1s-mediated UPRER, hsp-6p::GFP controlled by ATFS-1-mediated UPRMT, gst-4p::GFP<...

The ability of an organism to respond to changes in the intra- and extracellular environment is crucial for its survival and adaptation. This is accomplished on a cellular level through numerous protective pathways that ensure the integrity of the cell. While numerous cellular components are subject to stress-associated damage, one major involvement of cellular stress responses is to repair and protect the homeostasis of the cellular proteome. However, the compartmentalization of proteins into special structures, called organelles, poses a challenge for the cell, as it cannot rely on one centralized form of protein quality control to ensure that all the proteins within the cell are properly folded and functional. Therefore, to deal with perturbations to their proteins, organelles have evolved dedicated quality control mechanisms, which can sense misfolded proteins and activate a stress response in an attempt to alleviate the stress within that compartment. For example, the cytosol relies on the heat shock response (HSR), while the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria rely on their compartment-specific unfolded protein responses (UPR). The OxSR serves to alleviate the toxic effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Each stress response is triggered in the presence of cellular challenges and environmental insults and induces a tailored transcriptional response. The hallmarks of these responses include synthesizing molecules that re-fold misfolded proteins (such as chaperones) targeted to the proper organelle, or alternatively, remove damaged proteins by protein degradation. Failure to activate these stress responses results in accumulation of damaged proteins, cellular dysfunction propagated to systemic failure of tissues, and eventually death of the organism. The function and regulation of the different stress responses are reviewed elsewhere1.
Many insights regarding the regulation and activity of cellular stress responses have been attributed to the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, a multicellular model organism in genetic research. Nematodes not only allow studying the activation of stress responses on the cellular level, but also on the organismal level; nematodes have been used to study the effects of genetic perturbations or exposure to drugs and pollutants on their growth and survival. Their quick generation time, isogeny, transparency, genetic tractability, and ease of use during experimentation make them ideal for such studies. Additionally, the relatively quick physiological response to stress (between hours and a few days) and the evolutionary conservation of cellular pathways make nematodes a prominent tool in studying stress resistance.
There are two commonly used E. coli strains used as a food source to grow C. elegans: standard OP50, a B strain in which most experimentation has been historically performed2 and HT115, a K-12 strain that is used for almost all RNAi experiments3,4. It is important to note that there are significant differences between OP50 and HT115 bacterial diets. Growth on these different bacterial sources has been shown to cause major differences in metabolic profile, mitochondrial DNA copy number, and several major phenotypes, including lifespan5. Some of these differences are attributed to Vitamin B12 deficiency associated with growth on OP50 bacteria, which can result in defects in mitochondrial homeostasis and increased sensitivity to pathogens and stresses. All of these phenotypes have been shown to be alleviated by growth on HT115 bacteria, which have higher levels of Vitamin B126. Therefore, it is recommended that all experiments on physiological stress responses be performed on HT115 bacteria, regardless of the necessity of RNAi conditions. However, due to the ease of maintaining animals on OP50, all standard growth (i.e., maintenance and amplification of animals) can be performed on OP50, as significant differences in the experimental paradigms described here were not detected in worms maintained on OP50 as long as they were moved to HT115 post synchronization (i.e., from hatch post-bleaching with or without L1 arresting) until experimentation.
Here, the characterization of the activity of cellular stress responses using two functional methods is described. It should be noted that the protocols presented are primarily focused on cellular stress responses and their impact on protein homeostasis. First, fluorescent transcriptional reporters are utilized, which are regulated by endogenous gene promoters that are specifically activated in response to different cellular stresses. These fluorescent transcriptional reporters are based on the transcriptional induction of specific genes that are natively part of the stress response. For example, HSP-4, a heat shock protein orthologous to the human chaperone HSPA5/BiP, is activated upon ER-stress and localizes to the ER to alleviate the stress. In conditions of ER stress (e.g., exposure to tunicamycin), a green fluorescent protein (GFP), placed under the regulation of the hsp-4 promoter, is synthesized in high levels as can be assessed by fluorescent microscopy or quantitatively measured using large-particle flow cytometry of nematodes7. Similarly, the promoter of a mitochondrial chaperone, hsp-6 (orthologous to mammalian HSPA9), is utilized to monitor the activation of the UPRMT8, and the promoter of the cytosolic chaperone hsp-16.2 (orthologous to the human crystallin alpha genes) is used for assessing the activity of the HSR9. These reporters allow a rapid characterization of the pathways activated in response to various perturbations.
Often, the reporters presented here are imaged using microscopy, which provides a qualitative output of the activation of stress responses. However, while imaging techniques provide both information on intensity and tissue location of the reporters described above, its quantification is not always accurate or robust. While it is possible to quantify fluorescent activation using imaging analysis tools, these methods are relatively low throughput and sample size is small, due to the relatively low number of animals imaged. The ease and ability to obtain large quantities of animals quickly make C. elegans an ideal model system to assay the activation of fluorescent stress reporters through the use of a large particle flow cytometer. A large-particle flow cytometer is capable of recording, analyzing, and sorting based on size and fluorescence from many live animals. Using this method, it is possible to get the fluorescent intensity, size, and also spatial (2D) information for thousands of worms. The system is controlled using FlowPilot, which allows for real-time data acquisition and analysis of the measured parameters. Here, methods for both microscopic imaging and quantitative analysis using a large-particle flow cytometer are offered as methods to measure the activation of stress responses.
Beyond reporter analysis, the sensitivity or resistance of animals to stress can be measured using physiological stress assays. This is achieved by exposing animals to stressful environments that activate specific cellular stress pathways. Here, several methods are provided to measure sensitivity of whole animals to specific types of stressors.
ER stress is applied to C. elegans by using the chemical agent, tunicamycin, which blocks N-linked glycosylation, causing accumulation of misfolded proteins in the ER10. In C. elegans, growth upon exposure to tunicamycin results in major perturbations in ER function, and a significantly decreased lifespan11. By measuring the survival of animals on tunicamycin-containing plates, ER stress sensitivity of animals can be quantified. For example, animals with ectopic UPRER induction and thus increased resistance to protein misfolding stress in the ER have an increased survival upon tunicamycin exposure compared to wild-type animals12.
Oxidative and mitochondrial stress is applied to C. elegans by exposing animals to the chemical agent, paraquat. Paraquat is a commonly used herbicide, which causes superoxide formation specifically in the mitochondria13. Due to the specific localization of mitochondria-derived reactive oxygen species (ROS), paraquat assays are often used as a &#34;mitochondrial&#34; stress assay. However, superoxide is rapidly converted into hydrogen peroxide by mitochondrial superoxide dismutases (SODs)14. Hydrogen peroxide can subsequently diffuse out of the mitochondria and cause oxidative stress in other compartments of the cell. Therefore, we describe paraquat survival assays as measuring sensitivity to both mitochondrial and oxidative stress (other oxidative stress assays can be found15).
Thermotolerance assays are performed in C. elegans by placing animals in elevated temperatures. Ambient temperatures for nematodes are ~15-20 &#176;C and thermal stress is induced at temperatures above 25 &#176;C16,17. Thermotolerance assays are generally performed at temperatures ranging from 30-37 &#176;C, as animals exhibit major cellular defects at this temperature, and survival assays are completed within 24 hours16,18. Here, two alternative methods are provided for performing thermotolerance assays: growth at 34 &#176;C and growth at 37 &#176;C. Together, the protocols presented here can be utilized to perform large-scale screens when combined with standard gene knock-down using RNA interference or chemical drug libraries.
The protocol can be broken into 4 broad procedures- growth of C. elegans and preparation for imaging (sections 1 and 2), imaging of transcriptional reporters using fluorescent microscopy (sections 3-5), quantitative measurements of reporters using a large-particle flow cytometer (section 6), and physiological assays to measure stress sensitivity in C. elegans (section 7).

<table><tbody><tr><td>Antimycin A</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>A8674</td><td>for mitochondrial stress</td></tr><tr><td>Bacto Peptone</td><td>Fisher Scientific</td><td>DF0118072</td><td>for NGM plates</td></tr><tr><td>BD Difco granulated agar</td><td>VWR</td><td>90000-782</td><td>for NGM plates</td></tr><tr><td>Calcium chloride dihydrate</td><td>VWR</td><td>97061-904</td><td>for NGM plates</td></tr><tr><td>Carbenicillin</td><td>BioPioneer</td><td>C0051-25</td><td>for RNAi</td></tr><tr><td>Cholesterol</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>57-88-5</td><td>for NGM plates</td></tr><tr><td>COPAS Biosorter</td><td>Union Biometrica</td><td>350-5000-000</td><td>equipped with a 488 nm light source.</td></tr><tr><td>COPAS Cleaning Solution</td><td>Union Biometrica</td><td>300-5072-000</td><td>to use with COPAS</td></tr><tr><td>COPAS Sheath Solution</td><td>Union Biometrica</td><td>300-5070-100</td><td>to use with COPAS</td></tr><tr><td>DMSO</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>472301</td><td>solvent for drugs</td></tr><tr><td>IPTG dioxane free</td><td>Denville Scientific</td><td>CI8280-4</td><td>for RNAi</td></tr><tr><td>LB Broth Miller</td><td>Fisher Scientific</td><td>BP1426500</td><td>for LB</td></tr><tr><td>M205FA stereoscope</td><td>Leica</td><td>10450040</td><td>equipped with a Leica DFC3000G monochromatic CCD camera, standard Leica GFP filter (ex 395-455, EM 480 LP), and LAS X software</td></tr><tr><td>Magnesium sulfate heptahydrate</td><td>VWR</td><td>EM-MX0070-3</td><td>for NGM plates, M9</td></tr><tr><td>Paraquat</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>36541</td><td>for oxidative/mitochondrial stress</td></tr><tr><td>Potassium Chloride</td><td>Fisher</td><td>P217-500</td><td>for bleach soluton</td></tr><tr><td>Potassium phosphate dibasic</td><td>VWR</td><td>EM-PX1570-2</td><td>for NGM plates</td></tr><tr><td>Potassium phosphate monobasic</td><td>VWR</td><td>EM-PX1565-5</td><td>for M9</td></tr><tr><td>Revolve</td><td>ECHO</td><td>75990-514</td><td>equipped with an Olympus 4x Plan Fluorite NA 0.13 objective lens, standard Olympus FITC filter (ex 470/40; em 525/50; DM 560), and an iPad Pro for camera and to drive ECHO software</td></tr><tr><td>Sodium Azide</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>71289-50G</td><td>for imaging</td></tr><tr><td>Sodium Chloride</td><td>EMD Millipore</td><td>SX0420-5</td><td>for NGM plates, M9</td></tr><tr><td>Sodium phosphate dibasic</td><td>VWR</td><td>71003-472</td><td>for M9</td></tr><tr><td>Tert-butyl hydroperoxide</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>458139</td><td>for oxidative stress</td></tr><tr><td>Tetracycline hydrochloride</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>T7660-5G</td><td>for RNAi</td></tr><tr><td>Tunicamycin</td><td>Sigma-Aldrich</td><td>T7765-50MG</td><td>for ER stress</td></tr></tbody></table>

measurements of physiological stress responses in c. elegans

Measurements of Physiological Stress Responses in C. Elegans

Organisms are often exposed to fluctuating environments and changes in intracellular homeostasis, which can have detrimental effects on their proteome and physiology. Thus, organisms have evolved targeted and specific stress responses dedicated to repair damage and maintain homeostasis. These mechanisms include the unfolded protein response of the endoplasmic reticulum (UPRER), the unfolded protein response of the mitochondria (UPRMT), the heat shock response (HSR), and the oxidative stress response (OxSR). The protocols presented here describe methods to detect and characterize the activation of these pathways and their physiological consequences in the nematode, C. elegans. First, the use of pathway-specific fluorescent transcriptional reporters is described for rapid cellular characterization, drug screening, or large-scale genetic screening (e.g., RNAi or mutant libraries). In addition, complementary, robust physiological assays are described, which can be used to directly assess sensitivity of animals to specific stressors, serving as functional validation of the transcriptional reporters. Together, these methods allow for rapid characterization of the cellular and physiological effects of internal and external proteotoxic perturbations.

Using transcriptional reporters to measure activation of stress responses 
Here, fluorescent transcriptional reporters are used, which serve as robust tools to measure activation of most stress responses in C. elegans. GFP expression is driven under the promoter of canonical targets of master transcriptional regulators involved in responding to compartment-specific stresses. A comprehensive list of commonly used transcriptional reporters is available in <stron...

Here, we characterize cellular proteotoxic stress responses in the nematode C. elegans by measuring the activation of fluorescent transcriptional reporters and assaying sensitivity to physiological stress.

Organisms are often exposed to fluctuating environments and changes in intracellular homeostasis, which can have detrimental effects on their proteome and ...

measurements-of-physiological-stress-responses-in-c-elegans

Research

JoVE Journal

Biology

We have developed a video-rate tracking microscope system that can record and quantify C. elegans behavior at high resolution and high speeds. We have also developed computational methods to reduce the dimensionality of the worm images to a fundamental set of measurements that completely describe the shape of the worm.

C. elegans Tracking and Behavioral Measurement

This video introduces a short-term survival assay that tests a treatment for acute toxicity or tests a genetic strain for resistance to a toxic condition.  The example protocol shows an example survival assay in which worms are tested for their ability to  resist oxidative stress induced by paraquat (PQ).

C. elegans Survival Assay: A Short-Term Toxicity Test

To study the relationship between protein homeostasis, stress and aging, we monitored changes in protein folding by following protein dysfunction, protein localization in the cell and protein stability at the organismal, cellular and protein levels, using the genetically tractable metazoan Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system.

Using Caenorhabditis elegans as a Model System to Study Protein Homeostasis in a Multicellular Organism

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.

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

A protocol is described that uses anoxia/starvation in C. elegans to model ischemia/reperfusion. Functional outcomes include increased mortality, visible abnormalities in GFP-labeled neuronal processes, and impaired behavioral responses that require neuronal function.

An Anoxia-starvation Model for Ischemia/Reperfusion in C. elegans

C. elegans is an attractive model organism to study signal transduction pathways involved in oxidative stress resistance. Here we provide a protocol to measure oxidative stress resistance of C. elegans animals in liquid phase, using several oxidizing agents in 96 well plates.

Measuring Oxidative Stress Resistance of Caenorhabditis elegans in 96-well Microtiter Plates

Here, standardized protocols are presented to assess induction of the heat shock response (HSR) in Caenorhabditis elegans using RT-qPCR at the molecular level, fluorescent reporters at the cellular level, and thermorecovery at the organismal level.

Standardized Methods for Measuring Induction of the Heat Shock Response in Caenorhabditis elegans

Proteostatic decline is a hallmark of aging, facilitating the onset of neurodegenerative diseases. We outline a protocol to quantifiably measure proteostasis in two different Caenorhabditis elegans tissues through heterologous expression of polyglutamine repeats fused to a fluorescent reporter. This model allows rapid in vivo genetic analysis of proteostasis.

Quantifying Tissue-Specific Proteostatic Decline in Caenorhabditis elegans

This study presents protocols for two semi-automated locomotor activity analysis approaches in C. elegans complex I disease gas-1(fc21) worms, namely, ZebraLab (a medium-throughput assay) and WormScan (a high-throughput assay) and provide comparative analysis among a wide array of research methods to quantify nematode behavior and integrated neuromuscular function.

Comparative Analysis of Experimental Methods to Quantify Animal Activity in Caenorhabditis elegans Models of Mitochondrial Disease

Gut microbes may positively or negatively impact the health of their host via specific or conserved mechanisms. Caenorhabditis elegans is a convenient platform to screen for such microbes. The present protocol describes high-throughput screening of 48 bacterial isolates for impact on nematode stress resistance, used as a proxy for worm health.

High-Throughput Screening of Microbial Isolates with Impact on Caenorhabditis elegans Health

Caenorhabditis elegans serve as an excellent model system with robust and low-cost methods for surveying healthspan, lifespan, and resilience to stress.

Surveying Low-Cost Methods to Measure Lifespan and Healthspan in Caenorhabditis elegans

Learn to measure physiological stress responses in C. elegans using fluorescent transcriptional reporters and survival assays. This method enables high-throughput screening of genetic and pharmacological perturbations.

Measurements of Physiological Stress Responses in C. Elegans

Explore More Videos