Caenorhabditis elegans: A Model for Studying Human Pathogen Biology

Novel clinical strategies need to be evolved, as pathogens, especially the ones that infect the human, develop resistance. To do so, host pathogen biology needs to be clearly understood and this can be done using a nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, which harbours the same virulent microbes. Over several decades, the worm has been used to study host-microbe interaction with reference to immune response of the worm, antimicrobial molecules secreted, cell death in the worm body, quorum sensing network of the bacteria and fast or slow worm death. This mini review gives a bird's eye view of the directions that have been taken in these areas to date. Currently, the worm has been proposed to be an ideal model for high throughput screening of natural and synthetic drugs against a variety of bacteria. Experimental systems that allow this screening have been patented. Caenorhabditis elegans, thus, is one of the very effective models for studying pathogens that infect human.