Caenorhabditis elegans: how good a model for veterinary parasites?

The organism about which most is known on a molecular level is a nematode, the free-living organism Caenorhabditis elegans. This organism has served a s a reasonable model for the discovery of anthelmintic drugs and for resear ch on the mechanism of action of anthelmintics. Useful information on mecha nisms of anthelmintic resistance has also been obtained from studies on C e legans. Unfortunately, there has not been a large-scale extension of geneti c techniques developed in C elegans to research on parasitic species of vet erinary (or human) parasites. Much can be learned about the essentials of n ematode biology by studying C. elegans, but discovering the basic biology o f nematode parasitism can only be gained through comparative studies on mul tiple parasitic species. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved .