Quantification of C. elegans food intake under food stressors exposure: A fluorescence-based approach for food safety assessment
[EN] This study establishes and evaluates a robust analytical fluorescence-based framework to quantify E. coli GFP intake in C. elegans exposed to diverse food stressors, including soluble chemical agents (NaCl and caffeine) and nanoparticulate additives (AgNPs and Fe2O3NPs). Several analytical appr...
| Autores: | , , , |
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| Formato: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2026 |
| País: | España |
| Recursos: | Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) |
| Repositorio: | RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:riunet______::2708367190adbfb27e3e6071de5a45a1 |
| Acesso em linha: | https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/235417 |
| Access Level: | acceso embargado |
| Palavra-chave: | C. elegans Food stressors E. coli GFP Fluorescence CFU/ mL |
| Resumo: | [EN] This study establishes and evaluates a robust analytical fluorescence-based framework to quantify E. coli GFP intake in C. elegans exposed to diverse food stressors, including soluble chemical agents (NaCl and caffeine) and nanoparticulate additives (AgNPs and Fe2O3NPs). Several analytical approaches, integrating bacterial heatinactivation with nutritional-state-dependent autofluorescence (AF) corrections, were developed to discriminate stressor-mediated behavioural feeding avoidance from optical interferences. Results demonstrated that all tested stressors significantly reduced bacterial intake, reflecting a protective inhibition of pharyngeal pumping aimed at minimizing toxic exposure. All analytical approaches yielded highly consistent ingestion estimates, confirming the methodological reliability. Notably, caffeine exposure induced a unique physiological interaction, modulating AF differently between fed and starved states. This underscores the necessity of specific metabolic controls when assessing bioactive alkaloids. By enabling precise quantification of bacterial intake, this optimized framework enhanced the reliability of C. elegans as a sensitive biosensor, facilitating accurate toxicological evaluations of both conventional chemical agents and emerging food additives while offering a robust alternative to mammalian models. |
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