In vitro culture of C. elegans somatic cells

Because of technical hurdles, large-scale cell culture methods have not been widely exploited until recently for the study of Caenorhabditis elegans. Culturing differentiated cells from larvae and adult worms is probably not technically feasible because of difficulties in removing the animal's cuticle and dissociating cells. In contrast, large numbers of developing embryo cells can be isolated relatively easily. When placed in culture, embryo cells undergo terminal differentiation within 24 h. Cultured embryo cells have been used recently to characterize ion channel function and regulation and to determine cell specific gene expression patterns. This chapter will provide a detailed description of the methods for isolating and culturing C. elegans embryo cells.