Caenorhabditis elegans as an alternative animal species.

Caenorhabditis elegans has proven useful in toxicity testing of known toxicants, but its potential for assessing the toxicity of new pharmaceuticals is relatively unexplored. In this study the procedures used in aquatic testing of toxicants were modified to permit testing of small amounts (<40 mg) of gadolinium-based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) compounds. Five blinded compounds were tested. The toxicity of these compounds determined using C. elegans was compared to existing mammalian test system data (minimum lethal dose [MLD] values for mice). Four of five compounds tested had the same relative sensitivity with C. elegans as with the mouse test system. Testing with C. elegans is efficient and could markedly reduce the cost of screening potentially useful compounds.