How Fluoxetine May Affect the Egg Laying and Development of C. Elegans

Overview

Prenatal depression affects up to 23% of pregnant women in the US. Depression has been shown to be associated with birth defects, premature birth, and stillbirth. Fluoxetine is one of the only antidepressants in the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class to be prescribed to pregnant women. Consuming fluoxetine in the last trimester of pregnancy has been shown to increase pre- and post-natal health risks to both the mother and the baby. Long-term effects in infants that were exposed to fluoxetine in utero are unknown. To further determine if the fluoxetine is acting through serotonin, two different strains of C. elegans were used: Tryptophan hydroxylase mutants (TPH-1, genetically modified to have reduced serotonin synthesis) and wild type (WT, genetically similar to C. elegans in the wild). L4 C. elegans (the life stage where reproductive organs develop) were exposed to fluoxetine for 19 hours and were then transferred to non-exposed petri dishes where egg laying was monitored. The egg laying and larval development was monitored to adulthood. Although it was hypothesized that WT C. elegans would produce a greater number of viable offspring than the TPH-1 mutant, it turned out to be the opposite. Exposure to fluoxetine did not significantly change the number of eggs laid for WT or TPH-1 C. elegans. While fluoxetine seems to palliate some of the manifestations of serotonin deficiencies/irregularities, the data suggests that fluoxetine may not be fully compensating for the lack of serotonin in the TPH-1 mutant C. elegans. For example, the data shows that the fluoxetine-exposed parent TPH-1 and WT C. elegans laid fewer eggs than the control group. There were no noticeable impacts on the larval development in the progeny of fluoxetine-exposed C. elegans. The results of this experiment point to associations between C. elegans maturation, egg laying, and the physiological changes accompanying controlled serotonin regulation. Future experiments could include viewing how much fluoxetine the C. elegans are intaking in this experiment. This could be done by attaching a fluorescent dye to fluoxetine and observing the drug inside of C. elegans with a fluorescent microscope.

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