AUTOMATED ASSAY OF Caenorhabditis elegans WILD-TYPE AND CYSTATIN MUTANTS THRASHING BEHAVIOUR IN THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF PLANT DERIVED CYSTEINE PROTEINASES (CPs)

The intensive use and over dependence on synthetic anthelmintics for the treatment of nematode infection on only a few drugs with similar mode of action has put pressure on such drug candidates with resultant loss of potency due to development of resistance by target nematodes. Plant materials with promising quality and efficacy to substitute for current anthelmintics include the plant derived cysteine proteinases (CPs). Motility is an important indication of the effectivenes of a drug and is a characteristic of phenotype useful for high thoroughput screening of chemical and theraputic agents. This study determined the effect of cysteine proteinases on motility of C. elegans strains (wild type and cystatin null mutants) using the worm watcher device. Results show that motility of C. elegans was affected differently in PLS or papain. The effect of CP on motility of C. elegans strains was dependent on CP type, time of incubation and concentration of CP. Generally there was no significant difference (P>0.05) between mean motility of WT, cpi-1 and cpi-2 null mutant C. elegans in PLS when compared with PLS+E64 (control). There was a statistically significant (P ˂0.05) effect of papain dose on all the strains. Enzyme specificity on cuticle structural proteins might be responsible for difference in pattern of attack observed between papain and PLS. CP has potency for use as effective anthelminthic.