Hello worm community,
We are in search of nematodes belonging to clades 1-4 that can be cultured in the lab using the standard techniques for C. elegans culture, such as NGM plates/liquid cultures with bacteria as food. While we have plans to culture C. briggsae and P. pacificus (both belonging to clade 5, similar to C. elegans), we wonder if any of you have experience/ suggestions for easily cultivable species from clades 1-4. Any suggestions?
Thank you in advance!
Amir
In Clade IV there’s a bunch (offhand: Steinernema, Bursaphelenchus, Panagrolaimus).
I’d be interested to hear suggestions for clades I-III.
Thank you so much! Hillel. Always good to hear your ideas. Might be challenging to grow Steinernema/ Bursaphelenchus for our purposes because of their unique biology and food choice but Panagrolaimus sounds potentially a good option- a few strains even exist in the CGC!
Indeed, it will be interesting to hear if anyone has suggestions about clades I-III
Cheers,
Amir
Steinernema hermaphroditum (and quite possibly other Steinernema species not tested) grows extremely well on Comamonas sp DA1877, which is also a good food source for C. elegans. You can use normal NGM but a slight modification to the recipe is recommended.