-
[
Nat Genet,
2007]
In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, dosage compensation is mediated by a subtle twofold downregulation of both X chromosomes. A new study provides a significant advance in our understanding of how the X is targeted for dosage compensation and how this global regulation is integrated with regulation of the expression of each gene.
-
[
Nat Genet,
2012]
One of the most striking properties of RNA interference (RNAi) in Caenorhabditis elegans is its persistence in offspring after the triggering double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) has disappeared. A new study reveals that a heterochromatic silencing mark is deposited around the targets of RNAi and is transmitted through generations. These results show that RNAi can induce stable and heritable chromatin modifications in animals.
-
[
Nat Cell Biol,
2011]
Aurora A kinase is a key regulator of cell division, whose functions were attributed to its ability to phosphorylate diverse substrates. Aurora A is now shown to have a kinase-independent role in the regulation of chromatin-mediated microtubule assembly.
-
[
Science,
2002]
As any homeowner knows, timely maintenance is vital for keeping a building functioning properly after construction is finished. The same is evidently true for the complex architecture of the nervous system - at least in the roundworm. On page 686, neuroscientists Oliver Hobert, Oscar Aurelio, and David Hall describe a new family of proteins that help keep the wiring of the worm's nervous system tangle free.
-
[
Discover,
1991]
Undulating under the microscope, its muscle and nerve cells visible within its transparent body, the tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans is normally a creature of surprising grace. But one mutant strain is not elegans at all. It thrashes about in such an uncoordinated fashion that researchers have dubbed the mutant worm "unc"...
-
[
Experimental Neurology,
1975]
The precision of neuronal development is programmed genetically. The genes involved must be expressed in an orderly sequence so that their products appear in the right cell at the right time. By studying mutants in which this sequence is altered, it should be possible to dissect the development and recognize the steps controlled by individual genes.
-
[
Nature,
1992]
Induction is the process in development in which the fate of one cell mass is determined by another. A simple example occurs during vulval development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans: a gonadal cell called the anchor cell induces three neighbouring cells to embark on a programme of cell division and morphogenesis, which culminates, in a few hours, in the formation of a vulva. On page 470 of this issue, Hill and Sternberg report strong evidence that they have identified the anchor-cell signalling molecule, which they find is a member of the EGF (epidermal growth factor) group of growth factors.
-
[
Nature,
2001]
In all animals, the process of programmed cell suicide (apoptosis) is coordinated by enzymes known as caspases, which cut up key substrates in the cell. The dying cell is then neatly packaged, engulfed by neighbouring "phagocytic" cells, and cleared from the body without fanfare, leaving no evidence of the catastrophic events that preceded. It has always been assumed that there is a "point of no return" in this death cascade - at or shortly before the time at which caspases are activated - beyond which the process of cell execution proceeds inexorably. This view is challenged by Reddien et al. and Hoeppner et al. on pages 198 and 202 of this issue. It seems that cells in which caspases have been activated can in fact progress through a state of being "mostly dead", a stage that physically resembles the early phase of apoptosis but from
-
[
Science,
1985]
The biologists who investigate nature's deepest and longest-running mystery often use the term fate map to describe the startling transformations that lie in store for the fertilized egg. It is one of the more venerable terms in embryology, and one of the most appropriate, too, for destiny and geography indeed intersect within the magnificent speck of DNA and cytoplasm that is an egg on the edge of becoming a organism. In this one cell, the entire genetic bill of lading for an animal, be it fruit fly or human, is stored, waiting to unfold with miraculous precision. It is that process of life unfurling-of cells becoming brain or backbone, of genes selectively flashing on and herding cells toward their certain fates, of tissues aggregating and differentiating toward ever more specific tasks-that both confounds and as surely delights developmental biologists.
-
[
Nature Immunology,
2004]
The function of the mammalian TIR domain adaptor protein SARM is unclear. In Caenorhabditis elegans, however, the homolog of SARM controls the induction of peptides involved in innate immunity.