Hello everybody,
I’ve been trying to find some information about drug uptake by C. elegans, but all I could find was about other nematodes (parasitic nematodes). In the “Anthelmintic drugs” chapter from Wormbook, they say that drugs can enter C. elegans by ingestion or by diffusion across the cuticle. But I could not find more detailed information about these mechanisms in C. elegans.
Does anybody know where I can find more information about this subject?
Thank you!
I do recall a report somewhere, maybe a meeting abstract, that some of the srf mutants (Chris Link) facilitated drug uptake.
It probably depends on the drug. I remember reading about the Levamisol uptake and it was passive transcuticular diffusion due to Levamisol being highly water soluble and small enough to penetrate the cuticule.
But I guess others uptake is different, like in human, where quite a few different routes are possible, with most of them being passive.
Look at this paper, it has implications for drug uptake. One of the authors spoke at a 2008 meeting and If I recall correctly, hydrophobic compounds tend to accumulate faster.
http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v6/n7/full/nchembio.380.html
Check abstract #186 from the 2011 worm meeting for a nice analysis of drug permeability. They did some nice stuff with (IIRC) fluoroscein diacetate, which is activated in the gut by gut esterases. So, a good fluorescent assay for permeability.