Ernst IM et al. (2013) Ageing Res Rev "Vitamin E supplementation and lifespan in model organisms."

Nikolai S, Rimbach G, Pallauf K, Ernst IM, Roeder T, Bendall JK, Paulsen L, Huebbe P

[Ageing Res Rev, 2013]

We have conducted a comprehensive literature review regarding the effect of vitamin E on lifespan in model organisms including single-cell organisms, rotifers, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster and laboratory rodents. We searched Pubmed and ISI Web of knowledge for studies up to 2011 using the terms "tocopherols", "tocotrienols", "lifespan" and "longevity" in the above mentioned model organisms. Twenty-four studies were included in the final analysis. While some studies suggest an increase in lifespan due to vitamin E, other studies did not observe any vitamin E-mediated changes in lifespan in model organisms. Furthermore there are several studies reporting a decrease in lifespan in response to vitamin E supplementation. Different outcomes between studies may be partly related to species-specific differences, differences in vitamin E concentrations and the vitamin E congeners administered. The findings of our literature review suggest that there is no consistent beneficial effect of vitamin E on lifespan in model organisms which is consistent with reports in human intervention studies.

Lv Z et al. (2015) Parasitol Res "Genome mining offers a new starting point for parasitology research."

Wu Z, Ji P, Li H, Cai Y, Zhang L, Luo S, Wang H, Lv Z

[Parasitol Res, 2015]

Parasites including helminthes, protozoa, and medical arthropod vectors are a major cause of global infectious diseases, affecting one-sixth of the world's population, which are responsible for enormous levels of morbidity and mortality important and remain impediments to economic development especially in tropical countries. Prevalent drug resistance, lack of highly effective and practical vaccines, as well as specific and sensitive diagnostic markers are proving to be challenging problems in parasitic disease control in most parts of the world. The impressive progress recently made in genome-wide analysis of parasites of medical importance, including trematodes of Clonorchis sinensis, Opisthorchis viverrini, Schistosoma haematobium, S. japonicum, and S. mansoni; nematodes of Brugia malayi, Loa loa, Necator americanus, Trichinella spiralis, and Trichuris suis; cestodes of Echinococcus granulosus, E. multilocularis, and Taenia solium; protozoa of Babesia bovis, B. microti, Cryptosporidium hominis, Eimeria falciformis, E. histolytica, Giardia intestinalis, Leishmania braziliensis, L. donovani, L. major, Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, Trichomonas vaginalis, Trypanosoma brucei and T. cruzi; and medical arthropod vectors of Aedes aegypti, Anopheles darlingi, A. sinensis, and Culex quinquefasciatus, have been systematically covered in this review for a comprehensive understanding of the genetic information contained in nuclear, mitochondrial, kinetoplast, plastid, or endosymbiotic bacterial genomes of parasites, further valuable insight into parasite-host interactions and development of promising novel drug and vaccine candidates and preferable diagnostic tools, thereby underpinning the prevention and control of parasitic diseases.

Schierenberg E et al. (1992) Seminars in Developmental Biology "The establishment of embryonic axes and determination of cell fates in embryos of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans."

Schierenberg E, Strome S

[Seminars in Developmental Biology, 1992]

At the 4-cell stage of the C. elegans embryo, three axes can be defined: anterior-posterior (A-P), dorsal-ventral (D-V), and left-right (L-R). The A-P axis first becomes obvious in the newly fertilized 1-cell embryo. Pronouned cytoplasmic assymmetries arise along the A-P axis during the first cell cycle, after which the zygote undergoes a series of stem cell-like cleavages with an A-P orientation of the mitotic spindle; these cleavages generate several somatic founder cells and a primordial germ cell. The D-V and L-R axes are defined by the direction of spindle rotation as the 2-cell embryo divides into four cells. In contrast to the A-P axis, there do not appear to be cellular asymmetries associated with the D-V and L-R axes, and both axes can easily be reversed by micromanipulation. Thus, with respect to the roles that the embryonic axes serve in cell-fate determination in the early C. elegans embryo, it appears that internally transmitted developmental information is differentially segregated along the A-P axis, but not along the D-V or L-R axes. Instead, D-V and L-R differences in the fates of cells within lineages appear to be dictated by differential

Best AM et al. (2018) Cell Microbiol "Evasion of phagotrophic predation by protist hosts and innate immunity of metazoan hosts by Legionella pneumophilla."

Best AM, Kwaik YA

[Cell Microbiol, 2018]

Legionella pneumophila is a ubiquitous environmental bacterium that has evolved to infect and proliferate within amoebae and other protists. It is thought that accidental inhalation of contaminated water particles by humans is what has enabled this pathogen to proliferate within alveolar macrophages and cause pneumonia. However, the highly evolved macrophages are equipped more sophisticated innate defense mechanisms than protists, such as the evolution of phagotrophic feeding into phagocytosis with more evolved innate defense processes. Not surprisingly, the majority of proteins involved in phagosome biogenesis (~80%) have origins in the phagotrophy stage of evolution. There are a plethora of highly evolved cellular and innate metazoan processes, not represented in Protist biology, that are modulated by L. pneumophila; including TLR2 signaling, NF-B, apoptotic and inflammatory processes, histone modification, caspases, and the NLRC-Naip5 inflammasomes. Importantly, L. pneumophila infects hemocytes of the invertebrate Galleria mellonella, kill G. mellonella larvae, and proliferate in and kill Drosophila adult flies and Caenorhabditis elegans. Although co-evolution with protist hosts has provided a substantial blueprint for L. pneumophila to infect macrophages, we discuss the further evolutionary aspects of co-evolution of L. pneumophila and its adaptation to modulate various highly evolved innate metazoan processes prior to becoming a human pathogen.

Felix MA et al. (2002) Hermann, Editeurs des Sciences et des Arts. Paris, France. "Caenorhabditis elegans. Un organisme modele en biologie."

Labouesse M, Segalat L, Felix MA

[Hermann, Editeurs des Sciences et des Arts. Paris, France., 2002]

L'espce Caenorhabditis elegans fut dcrite en 1900 Alger par E. Maupas, qui s'intressait son mode de reproduction hermaphrodite. Plus tard, vers le milieu du vingtime sicle, V. Nigon et ses collaboratuers Lyon tudirent les reorganizations cellulaires accompagnant la fecundation et les premiers clivages. J. Brun isola les preiers mutants morpholgiques.

Lewis E et al. (1994) Parasite "Cuticulin genes of nematodes."

Bazzicalupo P, Zei F, Lassandro F, Lewis E, Ristoratore F, Nola M, Sebastiano M, Favre R, Cermola M

[Parasite, 1994]

Two genes coding for cuticlin components of Coenorhabditis elegans have been cloned and their structure is described. Recombinant proteins have been produced in E. coli and antibodies raised against them. Nucleic acid and specific antibodies are being used to isolate the homologues from the parasitic species Ascaris lumbricoides and Brugia pahangi.

Bucher EA et al. (1994) Seminars in Developmental Biology "Gastrulation in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans."

Bucher EA, Seydoux GC

[Seminars in Developmental Biology, 1994]

Gastrulation in Caenorhabditis elegans has been described by following the movements of individual nuclei in living embryos by Nomarski microscopy. Gastrulation starts in the 26-cell stage when the two gut precursors, Ea and Ep, move into the blastocoele. The migration of Ea and Ep does not depend on interactions with specific neighboring cells and appears to rely on the earlier fate specification of the E lineage. In particular, the long cell cycle length of Ea and Ep appears important for gastrulation. Later in embryogenesis, the precursors to the germline, muscle and pharynx join the E descendants in the interior. As in other organisms, the movement of gastrulation permit novel cell contacts that are important for the specification of certain cell fates.

McGhee JD (2013) Wiley Interdiscip Rev Dev Biol "The Caenorhabditis elegans intestine."

McGhee JD

[Wiley Interdiscip Rev Dev Biol, 2013]

The transcriptional regulatory hierarchy that controls development of the Caenorhabditis elegans endoderm begins with the maternally provided SKN-1 transcription factor, which determines the fate of the EMS blastomere of the four-cell embryo. EMS divides to produce the posterior E blastomere (the clonal progenitor of the intestine) and the anterior MS blastomere, a major contributor to mesoderm. This segregation of lineage fates is controlled by an intercellular signal from the neighboring P2 blastomere and centers on the HMG protein POP-1. POP-1 would normally repress the endoderm program in both E and MS but two consequences of the P2-to-EMS signal are that POP-1 is exported from the E-cell nucleus and the remaining POP-1 is converted to an endoderm activator by complexing with SYS-1, a highly diverged -catenin. In the single E cell, a pair of genes encoding small redundant GATA-type transcription factors, END-1 and END-3, are transcribed under the combined control of SKN-1, the POP-1/SYS-1 complex, as well as the redundant pair of MED-1/2 GATA factors, themselves direct zygotic targets of SKN-1 in the EMS cell. With the expression of END-1/END-3, the endoderm is specified. END-1 and END-3 then activate transcription of a further set of GATA-type transcription factors that drive intestine differentiation and function. One of these factors, ELT-2, appears predominant; a second factor, ELT-7, is partially redundant with ELT-2. The mature intestine expresses several thousand genes, apparently all controlled, at least in part, by cis-acting GATA-type motifs.

Elliott TS et al. (2014) Curr Opin Chem Biol "Genetic code expansion and bioorthogonal labelling enables cell specific proteomics in an animal."

Chin JW, Elliott TS, Bianco A

[Curr Opin Chem Biol, 2014]

The site specific, co-translational introduction of unnatural amino acids into proteins produced in cells has been facilitated by the development of the pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNACUA pair. This pair can now be used to direct the site-specific incorporation of designer amino acids in E. coli, yeast, mammalian cells, and animals (the worm, C. elegans and the fly, D. melanogaster). Developments in encoding components of rapid bioorthogonal reactions are providing new opportunities for labelling and visualising proteins. A new method called stochastic orthogonal recoding of translation with chemoselective modification (SORT-M) leverages advances in genetic code expansion and bioorthogonal chemistry to label proteomes with diverse chemistry at diverse codons in E. coli, mammalian cells, and in spatially and temporally defined sets of cells in the fly. Proteomes in targeted sets of cells have been visualised by SORT-M and proteins in targeted cells have been identified by SORT-M.

Walker JE et al. (1993) J Bioenerg Biomembr "The mitochondrial transport protein superfamily."

Runswick MJ, Walker JE

[J Bioenerg Biomembr, 1993]

The ADP/ATP, phosphate, and oxoglutarate/malate carrier proteins found in the inner membranes of mitochondria, and the uncoupling protein from mitochondria in mammalian brown adipose tissue, belong to the same protein superfamily. Established members of this superfamily have polypeptide chains approximately 300 amino acids long that consist of three tandem related sequences of about 100 amino acids. The tandem repeats from the different proteins are interrelated, and probably have similar secondary structures. The common features of this superfamily are also present in nine proteins of unknown functions characterized by DNA sequencing in various species, most notably in Caenorhabditis elegans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The high level expression in Escherichia coli of the bovine oxoglutarate/malate carrier, and the reconstitution of active carrier from the expressed protein, offers encouragement that the identity of superfamily members of known sequence but unknown function may be uncovered by a similar route.