C. elegans Deletion Mutant Screening

The methods used by the Caenorhabditis elegans Gene Knockout Consortium are conceptually simple. One does a chemical mutagenesis of wild-type C. elegans , and then screens the progeny of the mutagenized animals, in small mixed groups, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to identify populations with animals where a portion of DNA bounded by the PCR primers has been deleted. Animals from such populations are then selected and grown clonally to recover a pure genetic strain. We categorize the steps needed to do this as follows: (1) mutagenesis and DNA template preparation, (2) PCR detection of deletions, (3) sibling selection, and (4) deletion stabilization. These are discussed in detail in this chapter.