[
International Worm Meeting,
2021]
All animals are in contact with communities of microbes, termed a microbiome. Microbiomes play a large role in the determination of host physiology, health, and behavior. While the gut microbiome takes the spotlight of current research, the skin microbiome is an unrecognized area of study despite harboring a diverse community of microorganisms. This is the case for the model nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans; despite subtle yet convincing implications of surface-adherent bacteria, microbial interactions with its cuticle (skin) remain understudied and a "skin microbiome" unacknowledged in literature. C. elegans is constantly surrounded by microorganisms in their natural habitat, proven by their common isolation from rotting plants filled with microbes. These microbes inevitably come into contact with the worm cuticle and so the adherence of these microbes is a likely reality. Existence of these surface-adherent microbes is further supported by the adoption of extensive washing protocols which aim to rid the cuticle surface of all residual microbes. We seek to identify, characterize, and define a role for these cuticle-resident microbes in C. elegans using a natural model microbiota, CeMbio. Significantly, we characterize a discrepancy between the sheer number of bacteria between surface-bleached and unbleached animals via Colony Forming Unit (CFU) counts. We demonstrate that a large number of cutaneous bacteria reside on the C. elegans skin. Furthermore, our preliminary results suggest that bacterial isolates within CeMbio can be primarily gut- or skin-dominating based on the relative bacterial abundances from 16S rRNA sequencing. To understand how skin-dominating bacteria affects host physiology, we use Hoechst 34580 uptake to assess how CeMbio variably affects cuticle integrity in mutant animals. From our results, we hypothesize that CeMbio bacteria interact with the cuticle structures of C. elegans to impact worm integrity both positively and negatively. These studies can provide a deeper understanding of how environmental microbes elicit changes in host physiology and explain the role of natural microbes in an animal's primary defense-the skin.
[
Development,
2024]
The mitotic kinase Aurora A has been shown to regulate the anterior-posterior polarity in developing Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. In a new study, Daniel Dickinson and colleagues find that Aurora A has temporally distinct roles in coordinating the localization of Partitioning defective (PAR) proteins to establish cell polarity during development. To find out more about the story behind the paper, we caught up with first author Nadia Manzi and corresponding author Daniel Dickinson, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Saavedra-Sanchez, Luz, Matty, Molly, Peng, Fei-Xing, Ramos, Nicole, Haghani, Nadia, Garland, Danielle, Kyllians, Emmanuella, Olowokudejo, Adeola
[
International Worm Meeting,
2021]
The Covid-19 pandemic caused profound impacts on many, if not all, aspects of STEM research and learning for undergraduate students. One of particular interest is the loss of an already difficult thing to maintain in a classroom setting: engagement. To promote engagement with peers, mentors, and science in the summer of 2020, I designed Virtual Active Science Engagement (VASE) as a semi-structured mentoring and peer-networking program for a few undergraduates from across the USA for 8 weeks. VASE is now in its third term and over 25 meeting sessions. Growing from just six students to over forty, VASE students are globally distributed across seven different time zones: many students are first-generation in STEM or from other communities historically underrepresented in STEM. VASE students range in age from 16 to 24 (late high school to post baccalaureate) with career goals ranging from nanoengineering and parasitology to many fields of medicine and biomedical research. My objective was to provide a space for students to engage in small peer-network group discussions to explore science as a career, identify opportunities for research experiences, and gain confidence to visualize themselves as scientists. VASE meetings highlight the diversity of careers and paths into STEM with invited guest speakers while guided discussions unveil the hidden curriculum of academic science. Discussion topics have included how to read a scientific research article, find funded research projects, and give a scientific talk or journal club presentation. VASE students are also encouraged to participate in Virtual Itty Projects (VIPs). VIPs are brief, hands-on projects with the purpose of providing students with real research experiences and deeper understanding of how research is conducted. VIPs are performed alongside volunteer scientists (like you!), who donate a few hours of their time to train undergraduates in a useful scientific skill. Here I present one VIP, in which a dozen undergraduate students learned how to use ImageJ to analyze C. elegans cuticle integrity. We hypothesize that even a short period (<4 hours) of engagement with guided research projects will allow students to build confidence, expand their professional network, and hone their scientific interests. VASE is a virtual space for students to actively engage with motivated peers, compassionate guest speakers, an invested mentor, and the pursuit of science.