CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS AS A MODEL SYSTEM TO IDENTIFY THERAPEUTICS FOR Alcohol USE DISORDERS.

CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS AS A MODEL SYSTEM TO IDENTIFY THERAPEUTICS FOR Alcohol USE DISORDERS.
Behav Brain Res. 2019 Feb 22;:
Authors: Katner SN, Bredhold KE, Steagall KB, Bell RL, Neal-Beliveau BS, Cheong MC, Engleman EA
Abstract
Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) cause serious problems in society and few effective treatments are available. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is an excellent invertebrate model to study the neurobiological basis of human behavior with a conserved, fully tractable genome, and a short generation time for fast generation of data at a fraction of the cost of other organisms. C. elegans demonstrate movement toward, and concentration-dependent self-exposure to various psychoactive drugs. The discovery of opioid receptors in C. elegans provided the impetus to test the hypothesis that C. elegans may be used as a medications screen to identify new AUD treatments. We tested the effects of naltrexone, an opioid antagonist and effective treatment for AUDs, on EtOH preference in C. elegans. Six-well agar test plates were prepared with EtOH placed in a target zone on one side and water in the opposite target zone of each well. Worms were treated with naltrexone before EtOH preference testing and then placed in the center of each well. Wild-type worms exhibited a concentration-dependent preference for 50, 70 and 95% EtOH. Naltrexone blocked acute EtOH preference, but had no effect on attraction to food or benzaldehyde in w...

Source: Behavioural Brain Research - February 22, 2019 Category: Neurology Authors: Katner SN, Bredhold KE, Steagall KB, Bell RL, Neal-Beliveau BS, Cheong MC, Engleman EA Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research