Fechner S et al. (2018) MicroPubl Biol "The bodies of dpy-10(e128) are twice as stiff as wild type"

Loizeau F, Pruitt B, Nekimken AL, Goodman MB, Fechner S

[MicroPubl Biol, 2018]

DPY-10 is a collagen protein in the nematodes cuticle. Mutations in the dpy-10 gene induce various morphological changes that lead to animals with a dumpy (Dpy) or roller (Rol) phenotype (Levy, Yang and Kramer, 1993).

Troemel E (2018) BMC Biol "Host-parasite interactions: an interview with Emily Troemel."

Troemel E

[BMC Biol, 2018]

Emily Troemel is a Professor at the University of California San Diego, where her lab uses Caenorhabditis elegans to study host-pathogen interactions and the shaping of the immune response. In this interview, Emily shared her thoughts on peer review and its role in training future scientists, and the possibility of a new form of immunity in epithelia.

Tina Burton et al. (2006) Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function, and Behavior Meeting "Multiple FLPs are Involved in Locomotion and Egg-laying Behaviors"

Tina Burton, Lawrence Ha, Jenny Chang, Chris Li, Diego Levy, Adewale Olajubelo

[Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function, and Behavior Meeting, 2006]

Neuropeptides are involved in all complex behaviors in mammals. FMRFamide and related peptides (FaRPs) all share a common Arg-Phe-amide at their C-termini, and are found in organisms throughout the animal kingdom, where they are involved in a variety of behaviors, including cardioactivity, pain modulation, and reproduction. At least 29 flp genes encode over 70 FaRPs in C. elegans. Each flp gene encodes a unique set of peptides and is expressed in a distinct set of cells. Most, if not all, of the predicted FLP peptides are produced, and signal through G protein coupled receptors. To determine the role of the flp genes, we have been isolating animals carrying deletions in the different flp genes, and examining the mutants for locomotory and egg-laying defects. To date, we have isolated 11 flp mutants. Surprisingly, eight of the flp mutants have defects in locomotion and seven are egg-laying defective, suggesting that many FLP peptides modulate these behaviors. Furthermore, five flp mutants are resistant to serotonin-induced sluggishness. We have also been characterizing mutants carrying deletions in G protein coupled receptors, including some of the FLP receptors. These animals also have defects in locomotion and egg laying. The potential complexity with which the FLPs modulate certain behaviors is enormous and awaits further examination.

Moy K et al. (2015) PLoS One "Computational Methods for Tracking, Quantitative Assessment, and Visualization of C. elegans Locomotory Behavior."

Li W, Kim H, Story E, Raicu D, Brandon C, Furst J, Tran HP, Simonis V, Moy K

[PLoS One, 2015]

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans provides a unique opportunity to interrogate the neural basis of behavior at single neuron resolution. In C. elegans, neural circuits that control behaviors can be formulated based on its complete neural connection map, and easily assessed by applying advanced genetic tools that allow for modulation in the activity of specific neurons. Importantly, C. elegans exhibits several elaborate behaviors that can be empirically quantified and analyzed, thus providing a means to assess the contribution of specific neural circuits to behavioral output. Particularly, locomotory behavior can be recorded and analyzed with computational and mathematical tools. Here, we describe a robust single worm-tracking system, which is based on the open-source Python programming language, and an analysis system, which implements path-related algorithms. Our tracking system was designed to accommodate worms that explore a large area with frequent turns and reversals at high speeds. As a proof of principle, we used our tracker to record the movements of wild-type animals that were freshly removed from abundant bacterial food, and determined how wild-type animals change locomotory behavior over a long period of time. Consistent with previous findings, we observed that wild-type animals show a transition from area-restricted local search to global search over time. Intriguingly, we found that wild-type animals initially exhibit short, random movements interrupted by infrequent long trajectories. This movement pattern often coincides with local/global search behavior, and visually resembles Levy flight search, a search behavior conserved across species. Our mathematical analysis showed that while most of the animals exhibited Brownian walks, approximately 20% of the animals exhibited Levy flights, indicating that C. elegans can use Levy flights for efficient food search. In summary, our tracker and analysis software will help analyze the neural basis of the alteration and transition of C. elegans locomotory behavior in a food-deprived condition.

Christopher J Cronin et al. (2004) West Coast Worm Meeting "The Combined UC San Diego/Caltech Quantitative Behavior Analysis System"

William Schafer, Christopher J Cronin, Zhaoyang Feng, Paul W Sternberg

[West Coast Worm Meeting, 2004]

California Institute of Technology and University of California, San Diego have each developed practical, automated movement analysis systems to quantify aspects of worm behavior and morphology (see previous meeting abstracts). To better serve the Worm Research Community, we have combined our development efforts and merged our independent system designs to create a single, unified behavior analysis system. Our combined system provides the researcher with all of the quantification tools and database functionality of the individual systems, plus provides the framework for continued future development to satisfy the needs of the community. A list of the necessary hardware is available upon request.

(1976) Worm Breeder's Gazette

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1976]

Robert Wyman (Department of Biology, Yale University) reports that Theodore Bullock (University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California) has isolated a 4.1-meter long nematode from a 3.8-meter whale. The specimen is preserved, and Dr. Bullock is searching for a taxonomist interested in taking the beast. Want Ad: Does anyone know a way to cause a large population of males to release their sperm into the medium? CONTEST REMINDER: Don t forget that bottle of champagne from S. Ward and D. Hirsh promised to whoever scores the most progeny from a single hermaphrodite (see Newsletter, Vol. 1, # 2 for details). Deadline for submission of entries to either judge is February 23rd.

Martin RJ et al. (2016) Int J Parasitol Drugs Drug Resist "Anthelmintics: From discovery to resistance II (San Diego, 2016)."

Wolstenholme AJ, Caffrey CR, Martin RJ

[Int J Parasitol Drugs Drug Resist, 2016]

The second scientific meeting in the series: "Anthelmintics: From Discovery to Resistance" was held in San Diego in February, 2016. The focus topics of the meeting, related to anthelmintic discovery and resistance, were novel technologies, bioinformatics, commercial interests, anthelmintic modes of action and anthelmintic resistance. Basic scientific, human and veterinary interests were addressed in oral and poster presentations. The delegates were from universities and industries in the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The papers were a great representation of the field, and included the use of C.elegans for lead discovery, mechanisms of anthelmintic resistance, nematode neuropeptides, proteases, B.thuringiensis crystal protein, nicotinic receptors, emodepside, benzimidazoles, P-glycoproteins, natural products, microfluidic techniques and bioinformatics approaches. The NIH also presented NIAID-specific parasite genomic priorities and initiatives. From these papers we introduce below selected papers with a focus on anthelmintic drug screening and development.

Christopher J Cronin et al. (2005) International Worm Meeting "The Combined UC San Diego/Caltech Quantitative Behavior Analysis System"

William R Schafer, Zhaoyang Feng, Kuang-man Huang, Paul W Sternberg, Christopher J Cronin

[International Worm Meeting, 2005]

California Institute of Technology and University of California, San Diego have each developed practical, automated movement analysis systems to quantify aspects of worm behavior and morphology (see An imaging system for standardized quantitative analysis of C. elegans behavior, Zhaoyang Feng, et al, BMC Bioinformatics 2004, 5:115, An automated system for measuring parameters of nematode sinusoidal movement, Christopher J Cronin, et al, BMC Genetics 2005, 6:5, and previous meeting abstracts). We have consolidated our development efforts and merged our independent system designs to create a single, unified behavior analysis system. The combined system provides researchers with all of the quantification tools and database functionality of the individual UCSD and Caltech systems, but also establishes a common, open software and hardware foundation for continued development by Caltech, UCSD and the community. Current efforts include expanding system capabilities for the automated analysis of mating behavior with the challenge of tracking multiple moving individuals, both in contact with and separated from each other.

Siddiqui ZK et al. (1997) International C. elegans Meeting "SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPERATURE SENSITIVE MUTANTS EMB-8 AND HIM-14 BY DPY-10"

Ali MY, Miwa J, Siddiqui ZK, Hori F, Nishikawa K, Hori Y, Siddiqui SS

[International C. elegans Meeting, 1997]

Earlier, some alleles of different genes glp-1 (Kimble. J.) and emb-5 (K. Nishiwaki) have been shown to be suppressed by mutants in dpy-10(e128). The dpy-10 gene encodes a collagen which is similar to the collagen encoded by dpy-2 (Levy et al., 1993). Here we have examined the suppression of two temperature sensitive maternal effect embryonic mutants by the dpy-10(e128) mutation. Mutants in emb-8 (hc69) have a number of growth defects, such as embryonic cell division arrest (early to mid cleavage), at 25 C, eggs are osmotically sensitive, and have slow cell division rate (Also see abst. by Khan et al.). The double mutants of emb-8(hc69); dpy-10(e128) showed remarkable improvement in hatching efficiency than the single emb-8 homozygous mutants at 25 C. Similarly, mutants in him-14(it44) that produce 2-40% males, 95% dead eggs (Kemphues et al., 1988), when combined with dpy-10(e128) show suppression of the non-disjunction defect, reducing the number of males, and increasing the brood size of the progeny at 25 C. Interestingly, a high level of the HSP-20 transcript is observed in dpy-10 mutants at 15 and 25 C (K. Nishiwaki, unpublished, suggesting a general mechanism for the suppression of ts mutnts through a possible role of the HSP-20 in dpy-10 mutants.

RV Aroian et al. (1999) International C. elegans Meeting "Using C. elegans to Teach Embryonic Development to Undergraduates"

G Wienhausen, RV Aroian, D Johnson

[International C. elegans Meeting, 1999]

We have begun to use C. elegans as a model system in our undergraduate embryology laboratory class at the University of California, San Diego. In the past, this 10 week class has used Sea Urchin, Xenopus, Chick, and other non-genetic systems to demonstrate to students embryonic development. In this poster we will outline the 6 new weeks of C. elegans modules. These modules allow the students to use advanced techniques to explore widely applicable principals of embryonic development. These techniques include wild-type lineage analysis, mutant lineage analysis, use of specific inhibitors to alter embryonic development, immunofuorescence analysis of wild type and mutants using antibodies to various cell biology and developmental markers, genome searching, and knocking out genes using RNA-mediated interference. Our goal is to one day publish an article on our results in the Worm Breeder's Gazette. The embryonic development of more advanced model organisms such as Xenopus and chick are later used to compare and contrast to C. elegans. This work is greatly enhanced by the cooperativity of the C. elegans community in the sharing of antibodies, mutants, and other reagents such as GFP strains. Last year we used protocols, stains, and antibodies from to Geraldine Seydoux, Craig Mello, Pete Okkema, Michel Labouesse, Bruce Bowerman and the CGC. Thanks to them and others that have generously shared their reagents.