Rankin CH et al. (2015) Elife "Finding a worm's internal compass."

Lin CH, Rankin CH

[Elife, 2015]

A pair of neurons is required for nematodes to be able to navigate using the Earth's magnetic field.

Trojanowski NF et al. (2015) Curr Biol "Neural Circuits: From Structure to Function and Back."

Raizen DM, Trojanowski NF

[Curr Biol, 2015]

The new field of connectomics aims to obtain fine-grained anatomical connectivity data for vertebrate brains. A recent study highlights the types of experiments that will be necessary in order to draw conclusions about function from anatomical connectivity.

Lakhina V et al. (2015) Cell "For longevity, perception is everything."

Murphy CT, Lakhina V

[Cell, 2015]

Aging is a risk factor for chronic diseases, and identifying targets for intervention is a goal of the aging field. Burkewitz et al. now describe a mechanism that mediates the specific role for AMPK in longevity, whereby its activity in neurons modulates metabolism and mitochondrial integrity in peripheral tissues.

Frokjaer-Jensen C (2013) Genetics "Exciting prospects for precise engineering of Caenorhabditis elegans genomes with CRISPR/Cas9."

Frokjaer-Jensen C

[Genetics, 2013]

With remarkable speed, the CRISPR-Cas9 nuclease has become the genome-editing tool of choice for essentially all genetically tractable organisms. Targeting specific DNA sequences is conceptually simple because the Cas9 nuclease can be guided by a single, short RNA (sgRNA) to introduce double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs) at precise locations. Here I contrast and highlight protocols recently developed by eight different research groups, six of which are published in GENETICS, to modify the Caenorhabditis elegans genome using CRISPR/Cas9. This reverse engineering tool levels the playing field for experimental geneticists.

Leiser SF et al. (2016) Worm "New insights into cell non-autonomous mechanisms of the C. elegans hypoxic response."

Leiser SF, Rossner R, Kaeberlein M

[Worm, 2016]

The hypoxic response is a well-studied and highly conserved biological response to low oxygen availability. First described more than 20 y ago, the traditional model for this response is that declining oxygen levels lead to stabilization of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors (HIFs), which then bind to hypoxia responsive elements (HREs) in target genes to mediate the transcriptional changes collectively known as the hypoxic response.(1,2) Recent work in C. elegans has forced a re-evaluation of this model by indicating that the worm HIF (HIF-1) can mediate effects in a cell non-autonomous fashion and, in at least one case, increase expression of an intestinal hypoxic response target gene in cells lacking HIF-1.

Thomas JH (1998) Cell "Social life and the single nucleotide: foraging behavior in C. elegans."

Thomas JH

[Cell, 1998]

Since the rise of the field of sociobiology, the study of the biological basis of social behavior, scientists have striven to assign genetic origins for a variety of social behaviors. There have been a number of highly publicized and often controversial studies of the basis of human social behavoirs such as sexual orientation and religion. Less trumpeted by the popular press, there have been a number of more credible advances in the genetic analysis of complex behavioral traits. Two papers in the past year, one in this issue of Cell (de Bono and Bargmann, 1998), have established two interesting cases of a molecular basis for complex behaviors that are arguably relevant to social interactions in natural populations. Both have to do with food foraging strategies, one in Drosophila and one in C.