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Nature,
1977]
Participants in two days of talks held at the Accademia Lincei in Rome-the oldest scientific foundatin in the modern world, tried to tackle the ancient problem of how eggs plus genes produce animals. It was symptomatic of the renewed interest in Drosophila that the whole of the first day was devoted to that fly...
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Nat Neurosci,
2003]
In C. elegans, social and solitary feeding behavior can be determined by a single amino acid change in a G protein-coupled receptor. A new study identifies ligands for this receptor and suggests how changes in behavior evolve at the molecular level.
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Trends Endocrinol Metab,
2001]
In Caenorhabditis elegans, an insulin-like signalling pathway culminates in a transcription factor (TF) that is homologous to a subfamily of Tps responsible for the regulation of a subset of insulin-responsive genes in humans. Under harsh conditions, C. elegans reduces signalling through this pathway and arrests developmentally in a manner that is similar to the metabolic syndrome of humans. We propose that an understanding of this pathway could lead to drugs with optimal potency and selectivity in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus.
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Nat Genet,
2006]
Systematic mapping of genetic interactions for Caenorhabditis elegans genes involved in signaling pathways implicated in human disease reveals a network of 350 interactions. The topology of this network resembles that mapped previously in yeast, reinforcing the idea that similar networks may underlie the genetic basis of complex human disease.
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Nature Immunology,
2004]
The function of the mammalian TIR domain adaptor protein SARM is unclear. In Caenorhabditis elegans, however, the homolog of SARM controls the induction of peptides involved in innate immunity.
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[
Nat Neurosci,
2001]
A characterization of C. elegans lacking the gene for Rim suggests that this protein may be involved in pruning synaptic vesicles for fusion, not in docking or organizing active zones.
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[
Nat Cell Biol,
2010]
Kinetochores link microtubules to DNA and provide force critical for chromosome segregation in mitosis. New data show that kinetochores are not necessary for acentrosomal meiotic chromosome segregation in Caenorhabditis elegans. Instead, CLS-2 (CLASP) generates a mid-zone bundle of microtubules that are suggested to act in pushing the chromosomes apart.
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[
Science,
1984]
In a dimly lit laboratory room in Gottingen, West Germany, Einhard Schierenberg bent his long, angular frame over his microscope, watching and counting, recording what he saw on charts and videotapes, hour upon hour, day after day, intermittently for six years. Five hundred miles away in a tiny, starkly equipped cubbyhole in Cambridge, England, John Sulston was doing the same thing, hunched over his microscope, earphones on his head to block any sound that might divert him from the image in his eyepiece. Sometimes he would sit watching all day long, diligently marking in a notebook with his colored pens. Schierenberg and Sulston were learning, cell by cell, how to build a worm.
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[
Nature,
1992]
Dissecting the sex life of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans has already provided surprises for biologists interested in life-history theory. In a report on page 456 of this issue, Van Voorhies throws another spanner in the works by demonstrating that the costs of producing sperm are not as negligible as we might have thought.
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[
Nature,
1992]
Induction is the process in development in which the fate of one cell mass is determined by another. A simple example occurs during vulval development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans: a gonadal cell called the anchor cell induces three neighbouring cells to embark on a programme of cell division and morphogenesis, which culminates, in a few hours, in the formation of a vulva. On page 470 of this issue, Hill and Sternberg report strong evidence that they have identified the anchor-cell signalling molecule, which they find is a member of the EGF (epidermal growth factor) group of growth factors.