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SURVIVABILITY AND MORATALITY OF C. ELEGANS IN LOW OXYGEN CONCENTRATIONS.  J. A. Jamison¹,  S. Hing³, J. Kwong², J. Cohen⁴, C. Butts⁵, L. Myles⁵, B. Girten³. ¹NAFEO (sponsor) intern, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, ²Lockheed Martin, ³NASA Ames Research Center, ⁴Science and Technology Corp., ⁵NAFEO, Moffett Field, CA

   This study examines mitigation of risks for possible space flight opportunities relating to limited oxygen supply based on transport and container constraints.  C. elegans is a valuable model specimen for space biology because its genome has been fully sequenced and has a short life cycle that allows for study of multiple generations.  This study examined the relationship between survivability and oxygen concentrations for C. elegans.  In wild type, N-2 strain, a previous study demonstrated that worms can maintain a normal metabolic rate at levels down to 3.6 kPa of oxygen.  This paper also showed that C. elegans can survive 24 hrs of anoxia without major mortality.  In the current study, 950 worms in 0.5 ml of liquid media were cultured at room temperature in 0.5, 1.5, and 2.0 ml micro-centrifuge tubes and 15 ml conical tubes served as the control.  Tubes were capped and tightly wrapped and sealed with Parafilm to prevent air exchange.  The data indicated that there were no significant differences in survivability between the micro-centrifuge tubes and their controls with p-values of 0.2130, 0.2425, and 0.9476 with the different volumes, respectively.  However, there is a trend of increased survivability with increased tube size.  In addition, daily observation showed reduced motility in the 0.5 ml tubes over a 22-day period.  Based on the conditions of this study, the result demonstrates the quantity of air above the liquid media does not significantly inhibit worm survivability.  These preliminary findings will be used to optimize a method of measuring oxygen consumption in the air and in the media within space flight hardware housing C. elegans.