Caenorhabditis elegans for predictive toxicology

Abstract

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans offers great potential to address the need for faster and more reliable testing methods for predictive toxicology. The duration and cost of running C. elegans assays is comparable to cell-based in vitro testing, yet allows for toxic exposure information in a whole animal with many genetic, developmental, neuronal, and toxic mode of action processes that are conserved with mammals. Demonstrated areas of concordance for toxic response include aging, aneuploidy and germ cell genome abnormalities, growth and development, mammalian LD50 prediction, and neurotoxicity. Newer avenues of exploration, such as epigenetic regulation, innate immunity effects, and mutagenicity via DNA damage responses, also show promise. For predictive toxicology, the C. elegans model is most likely to prove useful as a complementary tool for early toxicity screening, as well as for the identification of conserved modes of toxic action.