Caenorhabitidis elegans as an animal model in toxicological studies

Caenorhabitidis elegans is a valuable model for toxic exposure analyses in vivo since the response of pathways is highly conserved with mammals. C. elegans provides several characteristics that can complement in vitro or cellular models. This overview describes how C. elegans models can be used to advance our understanding of toxicity studies, focusing on neurotoxicology, heavy metal, radio, and chemical toxicology uses. The extensive knowledge of the basic biology, development, and genetics of C. elegans, coupled with the easy to culture, makes C. elegans a great model to understand how a toxic compound can act in a whole organism, instead of studying isolated drug–target interactions.