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Genetics,
2015]
A little over 50 years ago, Sydney Brenner had the foresight to develop the nematode (round worm) Caenorhabditis elegans as a genetic model for understanding questions of developmental biology and neurobiology. Over time, research on C. elegans has expanded to explore a wealth of diverse areas in modern biology including studies of the basic functions and interactions of eukaryotic cells, host-parasite interactions, and evolution. C. elegans has also become an important organism in which to study processes that go awry in human diseases. This primer introduces the organism and the many features that make it an outstanding experimental system, including its small size, rapid life cycle, transparency, and well-annotated genome. We survey the basic anatomical features, common technical approaches, and important discoveries in C. elegans research. Key to studying C. elegans has been the ability to address biological problems genetically, using both forward and reverse genetics, both at the level of the entire organism and at the level of the single, identified cell. These possibilities make C. elegans useful not only in research laboratories, but also in the classroom where it can be used to excite students who actually can see what is happening inside live cells and tissues.
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Elife,
2024]
A build-up of eggs in the uterus of the nematode <i>C. elegans</i> triggers the release of large extracellular vesicles, called exophers, from neurons that are sensitive to mechanical forces.
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Elife,
2023]
Various aspects of olfactory memory are represented as modulated responses across different classes of neurons in <i>C. elegans.</i>
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Curr Opin Genet Dev,
1996]
This issue of Current Opinion in Genetics and Development examines mechanisms by which pattern is established during the development of a broad range of organisms and in a wide variety of tissues. Perhaps the most important message to emerge is that, on the whole, developmental mechanisms have been extraordinarily well conserved during evolution. Each embryo appears to have at its disposal a fundamental 'toolkit' of regulators and regulatory pathways with which to construct an organism. Most chapters in this issue discuss the tools; the last chapter, by contrast, addresses the evolutionary question of how different embryos give rise to distinct organisms with essentially the same 'tool-kit' of molecules during development.
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J Neurophysiol,
2007]
The work of Clark et al. in this issue of J. Neurophysiology extends the analysis of thermotaxis in C. elegans by providing a detailed analysis of the adaptation of thermotactic behavior. Previous work indicates that thermotaxis in C. elegans involves a biased random walk in which changes in temperature alter the duration of the runs that an animal makes between turns. Interestingly, the authors find that although behavioral responses to increases and decreases in temperature have opposite effects on run length, the two responses are of similar magnitude and adapt with similar kinetics. These properties are predicted to allow the system act as a band-pass filter that would be less sensitive to temperature fluctuations occurring on a time-scale significantly faster or slower than the time needed for an average run. This analysis of C. elegans thermotaxis raises potential parallels to bacterial chemotaxis, with the kinetics of adaptation playing an important role in determining the ability of the organism to sense a stimulus gradient. This raises the possibility that diverse organisms may exploit similar system properties to solve similar problems, such as the problem of responding robustly to subtle gradations in an external stimulus.
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J Am Soc Nephrol,
1994]
Apoptosis is a programmed form of cell death mediating the precisely controlled deletion of "unwanted" cells. This review discusses the key features of this cell death program, emphasizing that apoptosis is regulated by factors extrinsic and intrinsic to the dying cell. Furthermore, because apoptosis leads to the swift phagocytic clearance of intact cells, tissues are protected against the noxious effect of cell contents. Apoptosis occurs in the developing and adult kidney, and nephrologists now need to consider whether abnormalities of this program may contribute to renal disease. Evidence suggests that such defects could contribute to developmental abnormalities including polycystic disease, induce autoimmunity to renal tissue, and exacerbate renal inflammation and scarring. Finally, apoptosis may offer new avenues for therapy.
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Cell,
2009]
The TRIM-NHL family of proteins is conserved among metazoans and has been shown to regulate cell proliferation and development. In this issue, Hammell et al. (2009) and Schwamborn et al. (2009) identify two members of this protein family, NHL-2 in worms and TRIM32 in mice, as positive regulators of microRNA function.
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FEBS J,
2023]
Developmental programs are tightly regulated networks of molecular and cellular signaling pathways that orchestrate the formation and organization of tissues and organs during organismal development. However, these programs can be disrupted or activated in an untimely manner, or in the wrong tissues, and this can lead to a host of diseases. This aberrant re-activation can occur due to a multitude of factors, including genetic mutations, environmental influences, or epigenetic modifications. Consequently, cells may undergo abnormal growth, differentiation, or migration, leading to structural abnormalities or functional impairments at the tissue or organismal level. This Subject Collection of The FEBS Journal on Developmental Pathways in Disease highlights 11 reviews and three research articles that cover a broad array of topics focused on the role of signaling pathways critical for normal development that are deregulated in human disease.
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Virulence,
2010]
The ability of free-living organisms to defend themselves against pathogen attack is essential for their survival in the environment. Thus, the cellular processes that coordinate host defense responses are strongly conserved across millions of years of evolution. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, for example, employs a sophisticated innate immune system to detect and counter pathogen attack, whether the invading microorganism is ingested or comes into external contact with the animal. Furthermore, genetic analyses in rigorous laboratory infection models have revealed that coordination of the nematode defense responses involves several highly conserved elements that have mammalian orthologs. Thus, the molecular dissection of innate immunity in C. elegans offers insights into the mechanisms and evolution of comparable systems in more highly evolved metazoans.
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BMC Bioinformatics,
2019]
This preface introduces the content of the BioMed Central Bioinformatics journal Supplement related to the 15th annual meeting of the Bioinformatics Italian Society, BITS2018. The Conference was held in Torino, Italy, from June 27th to 29th, 2018.