Hi!
I’m conducting an experiment that use L4-stage worms in a killing assay. I’m wondering if there are any substancial differences between L4-worms vs postdauer-L4 worms that may affect survival?
I don’t know offhand if anyone’s done a really systematic comparison of post-dauer L4 to “normal” L4 (it might be very interesting, though getting to mechanism would be a real problem), but the two definitely aren’t interchangeable. Leaving aside the obvious difference in age, there are a bunch of mutant phenotypes that are suppressed by passage through dauer (though I don’t know if anyone has ever compiled a list).
Basically, you shouldn’t work with the two as if they were the same thing.
Thanks for the quick reply. It was my guess too, but i couldn’t fint any articles on the topic. For my experiments it would have been convenient if they were interchangeable, but that’s life 
trust hillel
and if you need a reference see:
RNA. 2011 April; 17(4): 639–651.
doi: 10.1261/rna.2310111
PMCID: PMC3062175
Effect of life history on microRNA expression during C. elegans development
Xantha Karp,1 Molly Hammell,2 Maria C. Ow, and Victor Ambros