Objectives: Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) has long been used as a model organism to investigate molecular mechanisms influencing aging (Ewald et al., 2015), behavior (Feng et al., 2006), and toxicity (Hunt, 2017). Being one of the simplest multi-cellular eukaryotic organisms, its small size, relatively short lifespan, and ease of care has made it a favorite model for researchers across the globe. We wanted to know if exposing C. elegans to increasing concentrations of ThaenaBiotic® (TB), a sterilized stool-derived postbiotic supplement would offer any protection against severe physiologic stress.
Methods: Nine hundred C. elegans were separated into five equal groups. Each group was then exposed to 10 mM of paraquat. This redox-active heterocycle, commonly used as an herbicide, efficiently forms superoxide anions and has been tied to the development of Parkinson’s disease in humans (Tangamornsuksan et al., 2019). In C. elegans, acute exposure and resultant oxidative damage leads to a rapid stress response that can be measured as decreased motor activity over time. The negative control had only the addition of 0.05% DMSO added to the growth media. The positive control had 10 mg/mL of vitamin C (a potent antioxidant) added to the media. Groups three, four, and five had increasing concentrations of TB added to the growth media (0.05, 0.25, and 1.25 mg/mL, respectively). The activity of the nematodes was measured over 24 hours in four separate biological replicates.
Results: ThaenaBiotic® demonstrated protection against oxidative stress in C. elegans in a dose dependent manner. Surprisingly, all three concentrations of TB tested performed better than the vitamin C positive control. Even at 0.05 mg/mL of TB, a concentration 200-fold lower than vitamin C, showed greater protection from oxidative stress-induced activity decline (75 vs. 84%, respectively). At 1.25 mg/mL of TB, percent activity decreased by only 3.2% whereas the negative control decreased by 41% at 24 hours post-exposure. The vitamin C positive control group declined by an average of 25% 24 hours post-exposure.
Conclusions: ThaenaBiotic® demonstrated remarkably potent protection against acute physiologic stress induced by oxidative stress.
