Hi all,
I am trying to culture germline mitotic cells for an experiment. I know that wormbook has a section on culturing cells from eggs, but any idea how I could do it from adult worms?
Hmmm, no ideas?
Well here’s another question then: Is there a way to sterilize adult worms without causing harm to the cuticle, for example by just bleaching the worm at a lower bleach concentration? Would such a bleach also kill any bacteria the worm has eaten?
What do you mean by “sterilize”? I take it you don’t mean to render the animal infertile, but rather to kill any bacteria associated with it?
There are strain-cleaning protocols that involve transferring the animal to plates that lack food and contain antibiotics, and letting them wander on those plates for a few hours. How effective the protocols are, I can’t say, as I’ve never used them.
Obviously it will help if you’ve kept a clean culture, so you can be sure there’s nothing there but your worms and OP50 or your chosen bacterial strain, one you know is susceptible to the antibiotic.
Or maybe you do mean to render the animal infertile? There are some other threads about methods to block worm fertility; this one seems to offer some RNAi clones you could use.