Amino Acid Requirements of the Free-Living Nematode Caenorhabditis Briggsae

Washed yeast ribosomes promote growth and reproduction of C. briggsae, even when supplemented to the basal medium at dosages too low to provide the organisms with sufficient amounts of essential amino acids. Hence, a re-investigation of the amino acid requirements of C. briggsae by single and multiple omission of amino acids from the basal medium revealed unambiguously that arginine, histidine, lysine, tryptophan, phenylalanine, methionine, threonine, leucine, isoleucine and valine are not synthetized at levels to permit reproduction; they are called essential amino acids. The requirement for arginine and isoleucine however appears to be less clear-cut. On the contrary, evidence is presented that alanine, asparagine, cysteine, glutamate, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine and tryosine can be synthetized at adequate levels; they are called non-essential amino acids. In addition it was shown that multiple omission of the non-essential amino acids is not deleterious. This is believed to be an important step towards the development of a minimum essential medium (MEM) for growth and reproduction of C. briggsae.