Hallo,
a colleague of mine is trying to find out if the nematode gut is a strictly anaerobic environment (for infection experiments with bacterial mutants). One would suspect it is anaerobic, but I couldn’t find any sources/articles about that unfortunately. Does anyone of you know if that has been shown yet? At best with a reference?
Thank you very much in advance
hellga
Hi,
evidence does exist for the shedding of anaerobic bacteria over extended periods of time by C. elegans, which would support your hunch that the gut environment is indeed anaerobic. For example, see;
http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/39549/PDF
They looked at a the retention/growth/shedding characteristics for a number of pathogens, which may be helpful for your colleague’s experimental planning?
Steve
Hi Steve,
that makes sense indeed, thank you very much. I will read it myself too. 
Greetings
hellga