RESUMO
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop a suitable hypoxic injury model, which is important for revealing pathological molecular mechanism of hypoxia.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>We focused on C. elegans by treatment with different hypoxic times and systematically observed mortality, movement, Cellular morphology and the related-protein expression of the animals.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>We demonstrated that hypoxia (0.2% partial pressure of oxygen) induced morphological cell defects, and then leading to death of C. elegans. The mortality of C. elegans increased along with hypoxic time, while hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF-1) was significantly up-regulated. In addition, by using neuron-specific transgenic wonns with green fluorescent protein--we observed the neuron-specffic injury caused by hypoxic stress.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>We successfully established an effective, convenient physical hypoxic model of C. elegans, which will facilitate the studies of hypoxic pathology and molecular mechanisms of hypoxic response in the future.</p>