Isolation of Caenorhabditis elegans mutants lacking alcohol dehydrogenase activity.

Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and the genes encoding this enzyme have been studied intensively in a broad range of organisms. Little, however, has been reported on ADH in the free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Extracts of wild-type C. elegans contain ADH activity and display a single band of activity on a native polyacrylamide gel. Reaction rate for alcohol oxidation is more rapid with higher molecular weight alcohols as substrate than with ethanol. Primary alcohols are preferred to secondary alcohols. C. elegans is sensitive to allyl alcohol, a compound that has been used to select for ADH-null mutants of several organisms. Allyl alcohol-resistant mutant strains were selected from ethylmethanesulfonate (EMS)-mutagenized nematode populations. ADH activity was measured in extracts from eight of these strains and was found to be low or nondetectable. These results form a basis for molecular and genetic characterization of ADH expression in C. elegans.