Morphological effects of caffeine and creatine onCaenorhabditis elegans

Abstract ID 25787 Poster Board 482 Creatine and caffeine are two supplements widely used by young adults in the U.S. Creatine is important for storing energy and to help fuel muscle contraction. Taken misguidedly as a wonder supplement to boost muscle-building, nonetheless there is promising research outcomes for creatine as a nutraceutical that improves muscle wasting linked to cancer and other chronic diseases. Caffeine is the most used psychoactive stimulant in the world. Increasingly, these supplements are taken jointly to promote fat catabolism while simultaneously increasing muscle anabolism. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) are nematode roundworms that are emerging as excellent models of drug effects, particularly those related to development, metabolism, and aging. This is due to their predictable and short lifecycle, high sequence orthology and homology to humans, and their entirely sequenced malleable genome. C. elegans represent an excellent model to determine impact of these commonly consumed supplements on growth and development. C. elegans were age matched and exposed to 8.75 mM caffeine, creatine, both caffeine and creatine, or a vehicle control for 4 hours during the L1 phase of development. The worms were then allowed to age to the L4 stage, at which point they were immobilized with sodium azide, mounted on slides and photographed using bright field microscopy. The volume of each worm was quantified using imageJ. Worms exposed to creatine had 2.0-fold larger volumes than vehicle control treated animals (p=0.000052, n=149 vehicle and 97 treated worms). However, worms treated with caffeine were not significantly different than controls (p=0.4, n=25 vehicle and 47 treated). Preliminary data suggest an epistatic interaction between caffeine and creatine, but more data is needed to confirm this interaction. Future directions include quantification of other morphology metrics, quantifying the localization and amount of various lipids, and determining the effects of caffeine and the combination of caffeine and creatine on survival rates of C. elegans. Given the prominence of the co-administration of caffeine and creatine it is important to understand the effects of these two compounds on the physiology of growth and development. This work will guide further research in vertebrates and humans on the effects of caffeine and creatine on these variables. This work was supported by the Lechleiter fund for science research at Xavier University.