High throughput fluorimetric assessment of iron traffic and chelation in iron-overloadedCaenorhabditis elegans

The nematodeCaenorhabditis elegans(C. elegans) is a convenient tool to evaluate iron metabolism as it shares great orthology with human proteins involved in iron transport, in addition to being transparent and readily available. In this work, we describe how wild-type (N2)C. elegansnematodes in the first larval stage can be loaded with acetomethoxycalcein (CAL-AM) and study it as a whole-organism model for both iron speciation and chelator permeability of the labile iron pool (LIP). This model may be relevant for high throughput assessment of molecules intended for chelation therapy of iron overload diseases.