De Haes, Wouter et al. (2015) International Worm Meeting "PRDX-2 mediates lifespan extension by metformin."

Temmerman, Liesbet, De Haes, Wouter, Depuydt, Geert, Van Assche, Roel, Frooninckx, Lotte, Billen, Johan, Braeckman, Bart P., Schoofs, Liliane, Smolders, Arne

[International Worm Meeting, 2015]

Metformin, the most powerful anti-diabetic drug on the market today, is thought to possess general health-promoting properties. Via an integrative approach using proteomic, bioinformatic, biochemical and phenotypic techniques and the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, we gained molecular understanding of the physiological changes elicited by metformin exposure, including changes in branched-chain amino acid catabolism and cuticle maintenance.We could show that metformin extends lifespan through the process of mitohormesis and propose a signaling cascade in which metformin-induced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) eventually increases overall life expectancy. We were further able to show that the peroxiredoxin PRDX-2 translates the ROS signal into a beneficial signal of the mitohormetic pathway and propose that this mechanism might underlie a general principle of pro-longevity signaling.

Ye Z et al. (2023) Front Cell Dev Biol "Trends in mitochondrial unfolded protein response research from 2004 to 2022: A bibliometric analysis."

Wei Y, Luan Y, Ye Z, Chai R, Shi S, Hu Y, Du Y, Wu H, Zhang L, Xue W

[Front Cell Dev Biol, 2023]

The mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPR^mt) is a stress response pathway that regulates the expression of mitochondrial chaperones, proteases, and other proteins involved in protein folding and degradation, thereby ensuring proper mitochondrial function. In addition to this critical function, the UPR^mt also plays a role in other cellular processes such as mitochondrial biogenesis, energy metabolism, and cellular signaling. Moreover, the UPR^mt is strongly associated with various diseases. From 2004 to 2022, there has been a lot of interest in UPR^mt. The present study aims to utilized bibliometric tools to assess the genesis, current areas of focus, and research trends pertaining to UPR^mt, thereby highlighting avenues for future research. There were 442 papers discovered to be related to UPR^mt, with the overall number of publications rising yearly. <i>International Journal of Molecular Sciences</i> was the most prominent journal in this field. 2421 authors from 1,402 institutions in 184 nations published studies on UPR^mt. The United States was the most productive country (197 documents). The top three authors were Johan Auwerx, Cole M Haynes, and Dongryeol Ryu. The early focus of UPR^mt is "protein." And then the UPR^mt research shifted from <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i> back to mammals, and its close link to aging and various diseases. The top emerging research hotspots are neurodegenerative diseases and metabolic diseases. These findings provide the trends and frontiers in the field of UPR^mt, and valuable information for clinicians and scientists to identify new perspectives with potential collaborators and cooperative countries.

Akram M. Abou-Zied et al. (2006) European Worm Meeting "Dynamic Expression of Homeobox Genes during C. elegans Embryogenesis"

Johan Koch, David Baillie, Robert Johnsen, Jurgen Hench, Akram M. Abou-Zied, Ding Xue, Thomas R. Burglin

[European Worm Meeting, 2006]

Akram M. Abou-Zied1, Jorgen Hench1, Robert Johnsen2, David Baillie2, Ding Xue3, Johan Koch1, Thomas R. Burglin1 Homeobox genes encode transcription factors of critical importance for development. Systematic studies of dynamic, spatio-temporal gene expression patterns of developmental control genes have been rare so far in C. elegans, We have started to investigate the expression patterns of particular homeobox genes during development using 2-channel 4D microscopy. The PCR-based cloning strategy adapted from Oliver Hobert allows the production of transcriptional fusions in which the upstream regulatory regions of each gene is placed in frame with the translational initiation ATG of the reporter gene GFP. The homeobox::GFP reporter constructs are being used to investigate the expression pattern in larval stages, and more importantly, also to examine the embryonic expression pattern using live GFP time-lapse recordings. We have been recording 4D stacks interspersed with GFP for the following genes ceh-5, ceh-33, ceh-34, ceh-41, ceh-44, and ceh-45, ceh-30, NPax, ceh-6, ceh-32, ceh-26. Additional homeobox genes are in line to be processed. Analysis of our 4D recordings has revealed in many instances early dynamic expression that fades again in later development, whose functional significance is currently unclear. Possibly these events in early development set up patterns, regions and cell fates that are not reflected by the expression seen later in larval stages.. Still, many of the genes start their expression pattern later in embryogenesis. Nevertheless, we find very intriguing expression patterns which show dynamic changes of cell position, incipient expression in a very wide range of cells with no apparent connection, or slowly increasing expression during late embryogenesis. Our recordings reveal a large array of different dynamic strategies that the C. elegans embryo employs to execute its developmental program. To aid in our analysis, we are developing several software tools. Virtual Wormbase (celegans.sh.se) is the major tool on which we are working to ultimately convert GFP expression data into digitized data that can be submitted to Wormbase. We also have developed additional tools to convert our recorded stacks in different formats and produce quicktime movies of the 5 to 10 Gig large datasets that one recording produces. More recently, we also started to increase the image data density (number of slices) to allow better lineaging.