Taufner GH, Costa DS, Zanardo TEC and Destefani AC
Obesity is characterized as a health problem of high prevalence worldwide, and to date, about two thirds of the US population is affected, generating a high financial cost for health management systems. Traditionally, the model for the study of obesity has been rodents, mainly rats and mice, and although the obesity field has progressed a lot, there has been a clear need for a cheaper and more efficient model. C. elegans is a small worm with a life expectancy of about 21 days that possesses rapid growth and feeds on non-pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli. This small nematode has about 60 to 80 percent of its genes related to human diseases, and it is now known to the scientific community that manipulating its genome can provide valuable information to define the pathophysiological aspects of obesity. C. elegans has been successfully reported as an animal model in research related to nutritional physiology, in addition to the characterization of several metabolic pathways, storage mechanisms and lipid release. In recent years, due to the advances of C. elegans in the physiological characterization of lipid metabolism, it is now possible with its use as an animal model to offer the possibility of in vivo identification of compounds that modulate fat storage.
