ABSTRACT
Nutritional studies of nematodes are limited by the fact that plant- and vertebrate-parasitic species have not been successfully cultured apart from their hosts. Except for a structural presence of sterols in membranes of nematodes, the function of these compounds in nematodes is poorly understood. Although nematodes do contain steroids that have hormonal functions in other organisms, attempts to demonstrate endogenous biosynthesis of these steroids by nematodes have been unsuccessful and elucidation of the function of these compounds within nematodes warrants immediate investigation. The development of capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry accelerated the discovery of additional sterols in phytoparasitic nematodes; the mass spectra of 63 different sterols identified in nematodes by this method have been published. Because of the present inability to culture plant- and animal-parasitic nematodes away from their hosts, investigation of sterol biochemistry in these parasites has been limited primarily to comparison of sterol compositions of host and nematode.
