Caenorhabditis elegans: A Convenient In Vivo Model for Assessing the Impact of Food Bioactive Compounds on Obesity, Aging, and Alzheimer's Disease

Peiyi Shen, Yiren Yue, Jolene Zheng, Yeonhwa Park

Index: 10.1146/annurev-food-030117-012709

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Abstract

Caenorhabditis elegans is a small free-living nematode that lives in temperate soil environments. It has been widely employed as an animal model in research involving obesity, aging, and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, because of its various advantages, such as small size, large number of progeny, completely sequenced genome, and short life span, over traditional animal models of vertebrates. These benefits contribute to an ideal research model organism. In this review, we provide an introduction to C. elegans and its applications in obesity, aging, and Alzheimer's disease studies, with the aim of stimulating scientists to use C. elegans as an experimental model in various fields of research.