Caenorhabditis elegans as model for screening leads for drugs against brain diseases

Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans ) is a multicellular animal model. C. elegans provides an opportunity to study complex biological networks in an intact organism, allowing for a fast and economic identification of mediators of compound action, as well as an assessment of the general effects of the extract on a living organism. C. elegans has become an important model system, owing to its sequenced genome and genetic tools, a short life-cycle, an established lineage and transparency that have proven useful when using C. elegans as a model system for human disease. Benefiting from these characteristics, a number of C. elegans neurodegenerative disease models have been recently characterized, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Huntington’s Disease (HD) models. The use of C. elegans as model organisms can expedite identification of molecular targets and signaling pathways affected by plant extract administration and thereby may facilitate the development of improved therapies for disease states and disorders.

C. elegans therefore provides an attractive platform for devising and streamlining efficient drug discovery and drug target identification methodologies.