Caenorhabditis elegans is a useful model for anthelmintic discovery
Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2015 papers
Abstract
Parasitic nematodes infect one quarter of the world's population and impact all humans through widespread infection of crops and livestock. Resistance to current anthelmintics has prompted the search for new drugs. Traditional screens that rely on parasitic worms are costly and labour intensive and target-based approaches have failed to yield novel anthelmintics. Here, we present our screen of 67,012 compounds to identify those that kill the non-parasitic nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We then rescreen our hits in two parasitic nematode species and two vertebrate models (HEK293 cells and zebrafish), and identify 30 structurally distinct anthelmintic lead molecules. Genetic screens of 19 million C. elegans mutants reveal those nematicides for which the generation of resistance is and is not likely. We identify the target of one lead with nematode specificity and nanomolar potency as complex II of the electron transport chain. This work establishes C. elegans as an effective and cost-efficient model system for anthelmintic discovery.
Related Papers
- → Zebrafish as a Developmental Model Organism for Pediatric Research(2008)225 cited
- → Working with Worms: Caenorhabditis elegans as a Model Organism(2019)111 cited
- → The in vitro diagnosis of anthelmintic resistance in cyathostomins(2011)29 cited
- → Zebrafish as an Experimental Organism(2001)2 cited
- Zebrafish as a model organism for cardiovascular studies(2016)