Kuersten S et al. (1994) Worm Breeder's Gazette "Mono- and Polycistronic pre-mRNA Splicing in a C. elegans Embryo Extract."

Blumenthal TE, Kuersten S

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1994]

Mono- and Polycistronic pre-mRNA Splicing in a C. elegans embryo extract

Link CD (1988) Worm Breeder's Gazette "Call for C. elegans Cloned Genes"

Link CD

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1988]

A few years ago, when I was brewing up C. elegans and P. redivivus libraries, I also constructed a genomic lambda EMBL-4 library from a wild strain, WS9-6, that I had gotten from Victor Ambros. This male/female strain is morphologically similar to C. elegans, but is not cross-fertile with either C. elegans or C. remanei. This spring I am planning to fish some C. elegans genes out of this library as an exercise for a molecular genetics laboratory course. If anyone has a gene that they might like isolated from this library (for evolutionary comparisons, etc.) please let me know.

Matthews LR et al. (1994) Worm Breeder's Gazette "A Potential C. elegans E2F Homolog: Is it zyg-9?"

Galas S, Matthews LR

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1994]

A potential C. elegans E2F homolog: Is it zyg-9? Lisa Matthews and Simon Galas, CRBM, CNRS Montpellier, France

Ward S (1979) Worm Breeder's Gazette "A Gonochoristic Strain of C. elegans"

Ward S

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1979]

At 25 C the isx-1(hc17ts) mutation abolishes spermatogenesis in hermaphrodites, making them females,and causes males to develop as sterile intersexes (Nelson et al., Dev. Biol.66: 386-409, 1978). I found that a double mutant strain, HC17E364, maintained itself at 16 C or 20 C as a population with half males. Subsequently a mutation was segregated from the double that when combined with hc17ts abolishes spermatogenesis in hermaphrodites at all temperatures but leaves males fertile at 16 C or 20 C. Therefore this strain maintains itself as an ordinary gonochoristic species, with separate males and females, at 16 or 20 C. At 25 males are intersex and sterile. The second mutation has been tentatively assigned to a new gene gch which appears to be linked to chromosome II, but precise mapping is not complete. The genetics has been frustrating because the female phenotype of isx,gch is suppressed to varying degrees by most standard morphological markers. In the presence of isx the female phenotype of gch is semi- dominant and shows a partial maternal effect. It is intriguing that apparently only two mutations are necessary to convert C. elegans from a hermaphrodite to a gonochoristic species.

Dusenbery DB et al. (1977) Worm Breeder's Gazette

Anderson GL, Dusenbery DB

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1977]

Temperature-induced phase transitions have been reported to occur in several nematode species. Caenorhabditis s been stored in tap water at 10 C for up to 48 hrs., exhibited a phase transition at about 10 C. The temperature of the 'phase' transition in C. elegans might therefore depend upon the thermal history of the organisms. To test this hypothesis worms were grown at 15 C, 20 C, and 25 C and their oxygen consumption measured over a wide temperature range. Arrhenius plots of oxygen uptake vs temperature were made. Similar experiments were carried out on crude homogenates prepared by disruption in a French press followed by low speed centrifugation. An inflection was evident in plots of both intact and fragmented worms. The temperature at which the inflection occurred was a function of the thermal history of the nematodes being within a few degrees of the growth temperature.

Consortium TCeGS (1994) Worm Breeder's Gazette "The C. elegans Genome Sequencing Project: A Progress Report"

Consortium TCeGS

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1994]

The C. elegans genome sequencing project: A progress report. The C. elegans Genome Consortium, Genome Sequencing Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA and Sanger Centre, Hinxton Hall, Cambridge, UK.

Consortium TCeGS (1994) Worm Breeder's Gazette "The C. elegans Genome Sequencing Project: A Progress Report."

Consortium TCeGS

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1994]

The C. elegans genome sequencing project: A progress report. The C. elegans Genome Consortium, Genome Sequencing Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA and Sanger Centre, Hinxton Hall, Cambridge, UK.

Wadsworth WG et al. (1991) Worm Breeder's Gazette "The C-terminus of unc-"

Ishii N, Hedgecock EM, Wadsworth WG

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1991]

unc-6 is required for guiding cell and axon migrations along the body wall. Previously, it was reported that the N-terminus of the protein is homologous to domains VI, V-1, V-2, and V-3, of laminin subunits. However, as discussed at the last C. elegans meeting, it was suspected that unc-6 is not a C. elegans homolog of a laminin subunit. We also reported that the genomic sequence downstream from the domain V-3 coding region did not predict exons that could encode laminin sequences. The complete sequence of unc-6 has now been confirmed by sequencing PCR amplified cDNAs (we thank A. Fire for poly-A/adaptor primers). As shown below, the C-terminus is encoded by 5 exons. An untranslated region of 520 bp contains a polyadenylation signal MTMA 16bp upstream from the poly-A tract. The C-terminus of unc-6 contains 153 amino acids (unc-6 = 591 amino acids) and forms a unique domain designated C. The region contains six cysteines which could either form disulfide bonds to stabilize a folded structure or bind it to other proteins. Database searches have not revealed any strong homologies between domain C and other proteins. There is no homology to laminin. A modest similarity, of uncertain significance, is seen to the C-terminus of complement components C3, C4, and C5. [See Figure 1]

De Stasio E et al. (1998) Worm Breeder's Gazette "Further Optimization of ENU Mutagenesis"

Dorman S, De Stasio E

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1998]

Our lab previously reported the mutagenic spectrum of ENU using reversion of unc-93(e1500) (Genetics 147:597). We found that A/T->G/C or A/T->C/G changes comprised half of the sequenced ENU-induced point mutations. It is clear that this broader mutagenic spectrum could make ENU a superior mutagen for genetic studies requiring, for example, non-null alleles. The major drawback to ENU mutagenesis, however, is its relatively high, concentration-dependent toxicity to C. elegans.

Nate Szewczyk et al. (2003) Worm Breeder's Gazette "Baseline data for worms grown in C. elegans Maintenance Medium"

Cassie Conley, Nate Szewczyk, June Sunga

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 2003]

Growth of C. elegans in axenic medium was proposed prior to development of the worm as a genetic system. Dougherty saw the utility of C. elegans as a genetic system and was interested in axenic cultivation in order to apply genetics to the study of worm metabolism. Development of a chemically defined axenic medium for C. elegans cultivation ultimately proved a long road and in the interim the worm has become a genetic model system. Most of our community grows animals on NGM and because of the large base of knowledge of animals on NGM there is good cause to continue to use NGM.