Maurer Laura L, Ryde Ian T, Yang Xinyu, Meyer Joel N
Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
Curr Protoc Toxicol. 2015 Nov 2;66:20.10.1-20.10.25. doi: 10.1002/0471140856.tx2010s66.
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is extensively utilized in toxicity studies. C. elegans offers a high degree of homology with higher organisms, and its ease of use and relatively inexpensive maintenance have made it an attractive complement to mammalian and ecotoxicological models. C. elegans provides multiple benefits, including the opportunity to perform relatively high-throughput assays on whole organisms, a wide range of genetic tools permitting investigation of mechanisms and genetic sensitivity, and transparent bodies that facilitate toxicokinetic studies. This unit describes protocols for three nanotoxicity assays in C. elegans: lethality, growth, and reproduction. This unit focuses on how to use these well-established assays with nanoparticles, which are being produced in ever-increasing volume and exhibit physicochemical properties that require alteration of standard toxicity assays. These assays permit a broad phenotypic assessment of nanotoxicity in C. elegans, and, when used in combination with genetic tools and other assays, also permit mechanistic insight.
线虫秀丽隐杆线虫被广泛用于毒性研究。秀丽隐杆线虫与高等生物具有高度的同源性，其易于使用且维护成本相对较低，这使其成为哺乳动物和生态毒理学模型的有吸引力的补充。秀丽隐杆线虫具有多种优势，包括有机会对整个生物体进行相对高通量的检测、有广泛的遗传工具可用于研究机制和遗传敏感性，以及其透明的身体便于进行毒物动力学研究。本单元描述了秀丽隐杆线虫中三种纳米毒性检测的方案：致死率、生长和繁殖。本单元重点介绍如何将这些成熟的检测方法用于纳米颗粒，纳米颗粒的产量不断增加，并且具有需要改变标准毒性检测方法的物理化学性质。这些检测方法可以对线虫中的纳米毒性进行广泛的表型评估，并且当与遗传工具和其他检测方法结合使用时，还可以深入了解其作用机制。
