Chalfie M J Neurogenet "A touching story."

Chalfie M

[J Neurogenet]

A slide taped to a window at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory was my first introduction to the touch receptor neurons of the nematode <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>. Studying these cells as a postdoc with Sydney Brenner gave me a chance to work with John Sulston on a fascinating set of neurons. I would never have guessed then that 43 years later I would still be excited about learning their secrets.

Schierenberg E (1995) International C. elegans Meeting "A SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD WORM.."

Schierenberg E

[International C. elegans Meeting, 1995]

... Meeting appears to be a good occasion to look back to the early days of the C. elegans research, when the bald and bearded bandmasters of today were handsome, slender lads, when the modern matrons of mutants were rosy and shy maidens. Some so far undisclosed photo documents of the First International C. elegans Meeting 1977 in Woods Hole have been rediscovered under mysterious circumstances and will be proudly presented to the general public for the first (and last) time.

Barger SR et al. (2023) J Cell Sci "Nuclear envelope assembly relies on CHMP-7 in the absence of BAF-LEM-mediated hole closure."

Bahmanyar S, Penfield L, Barger SR

[J Cell Sci, 2023]

Barrier-to-autointegration (BAF) is a DNA binding protein that crosslinks chromatin to allow mitotic nuclear envelope (NE) assembly. The Lap2b-Emerin-Man1(LEM)-domain protein LEMD2 and ESCRTII/III hybrid protein CHMP7 close NE holes surrounding spindle microtubules (MTs). BAF binds LEM-domain family proteins, which repairs NE ruptures in interphase, but whether BAF-LEM binding participates in NE hole closure around spindle MTs is not known. Here, we take advantage of the stereotypical event of NE formation in fertilized C. elegans oocytes to show that BAF-LEM binding and LEM-2LEMD2-CHMP-7 have distinct roles in NE closure around spindle MTs. LEM-2/EMR-1emerin function redundantly with BAF-1 in NE closure. Compromising BAF-LEM binding revealed an additional role for EMR-1emerin in maintenance of the NE permeability barrier. In the absence of BAF-LEM binding, LEM-2-CHMP-7 are required for NE assembly and embryo survival. The winged helix domain of LEM-2 recruits CHMP-7 to the NE in C. elegans and a LEM-2-independent nucleoplasmic pool of CHMP-7 also contributes to NE stability. Thus, NE hole closure surrounding spindle MTs requires redundant mechanisms that safeguard against failure in NE assembly to support embryogenesis.

Mlot C (1991) Science "A well-rounded worm."

Mlot C

[Science, 1991]

The millimeter-long roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans is amassing a sizable research following. As more and more people have joined teh confederation of research efforts loosely called the worm project (see Science, 15 June 1990, p. 1310), the community's biennial meeting has outgrown the traditional watering hole at Cold Spring Harbor. This year, the researchers moved inland for the Eighth International C. elegans Meeting, held June 1-5 on Lake Mendota at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. More than 500 "worm people" turned out to absorb progress reports on the sequencing of the C. elegans genome, the study of its developmental pathways-and some newer topics as well.

Nah W et al. (2003) Lect N A I "Feature extraction for classification of Caenorhabditis elegans behavioral phenotypes."

Baek JH, Nah W, Hong SB

[Lect N A I, 2003]

Caenorhabditis (C.) elegans is often used in genetic analysis inneuroscience because it has simple model organisms; an adult hermaphroditecontains only 302 neurons. We use an automated tracking system, which makesit possible to measure the rate and direction of movement for each worm and tocompute the frequency of reversals in direction. In this paper, we propose newpreprocessing method using hole detection, and then we describe how to extractfeatures that are very useful for classification of C. elegans behaviouralphenotypes. We use 3 kinds of features (Large-scale movement, body size, andbody posture). For the experiments, we classify 9 mutant types of worms andanalyze their behavioural characteristics.

Fodor A et al. (1981) Worm Breeder's Gazette "a technique for C elegans mass cultures."

Fodor A, Csepely C, Deak P

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1981]

A 4 liter glass 'fermenter' has been used instead of Roux bottles in our lab for C. elegans mass liquid cultures. It is made of glass plates stuck together with silicone rubber. It is autoclavable at 120 C, and provided with an aluminium cover containing two noles, into which tubes, are sealed by silicone rubber. One tube (the shorter one) includes a 'weighted' valve, supplied with a movable but hole- covering glass ball. The other an inverted T, the horizontal arms of which are perforated with holes, the prefiltered condensed air entering via the vertical section. This apparatus is practical for both bacteria and C. elegans. New cultures are started by transferring the cover to a new, sterilized culture from an old one. [See Figure 1]

Kaan P et al. (1985) International C. elegans Meeting "relative frequencies of lethal and maternal-effect mutations balanced by eT1(III;V)."

Baillie DL, Byman A, McKim KS, Turner LM, Peters KR, Luinenburg I, Kaan P, Banfield D, Khosla M, Bird S, Vahidi H, Johnsen RC, Hole MJK

[International C. elegans Meeting, 1985]

Edgar RS et al. (1977) Science "The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans: a new organism for intensive biological study."

Edgar RS, Wood WB

[Science, 1977]

At a recent conference in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, investigators met to discuss the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. This free-living worm may, according to some workers, become the Escherichia coli or at least the bacteriophage T4 of the animal world. Small (about 1mm in length) and semitransparent, C. elegans provides for research the advantages of a short life cycle (3 days) and a simple anatomy-it contains about 810 nongonadal nuclei. It is both easy to cultivate, on E. coli as a food source, and convenient for genetic analysis. Its genes are carried on five autosomes and a sex chromosome (X), and it has a genome size about 20 times that of E. coli. It generally reproduces as a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite (XX), but occasional males (XO), which arise by nondisjunction, permit sexual reproduction as well....

Bwambok DK et al. (2014) Anal Chem "Adaptive use of bubble wrap for storing liquid samples and performing analytical assays."

Christodouleas DC, Lange H, Morin SA, Bwambok DK, Phillips ST, Whitesides GM

[Anal Chem, 2014]

This paper demonstrates that the gas-filled compartments in the packing material commonly called &quot;bubble wrap&quot; can be repurposed in resource-limited regions as containers to store liquid samples, and to perform bioanalyses. The bubbles of bubble wrap are easily filled by injecting the samples into them using a syringe with a needle or a pipet tip, and then sealing the hole with nail hardener. The bubbles are transparent in the visible range of the spectrum, and can be used as &quot;cuvettes&quot; for absorbance and fluorescence measurements. The interiors of these bubbles are sterile and allow storage of samples without the need for expensive sterilization equipment. The bubbles are also permeable to gases, and can be used to culture and store micro-organisms. By incorporating carbon electrodes, these bubbles can be used as electrochemical cells. This paper demonstrates the capabilities of the bubbles by culturing E. coli, growing C. elegans, measuring glucose and hemoglobin spectrophotometrically, and measuring ferrocyanide electrochemically, all within the bubbles.

Higashi KI et al. (1988) Worm Breeder's Gazette "more on phorbol ester TPA and C elegans embryogenesis."

Tabuse Y, Higashi KI, Miwa J

[Worm Breeder's Gazette, 1988]

The tumor promoting phorbol ester TPA causes severe perturbations in the growth and reproduction of larval and adult C. elegans. One g/ml of TPA arrests the growth of L1 larvae. We reported previously that the partial embryo that comprised an AB or a P1 cell underwent many rounds of cell division to form cell clusters and that E-cell specific autofluorescence developed normally in a P1-derived partial embryo in 1 g/ml of TPA. Thus, we concluded that C. elegans early embryogenesis was unaffected by TPA. The observations have been confirmed in the presence of 5 g/ml TPA using laser microsurgery. We have, however, remained unable to tell whether the late embryogenesis is also unaffected by TPA, because gastrulation and morphogenesis do not proceed normally in the partial embryo. In an attempt to solve this problem, we used laser microsurgery to puncture an eggshell without causing apparent damages in individual cells. We punctured the eggshell of two-cell stage embryos with laser microbeam (wave length 560nm, about 1 m diameter at the focal plane, pulsed beam of 6ns duration) in the embryonic culture medium and followed the embryonic development. To insure that an effective hole was opened at the egg shell, a nontoxic fluorescent dye, 0.1% lucifer yellow, was added to the culture medium. All laser-treated embryos underwent many rounds of cell division in the absence of TPA. Although many stopped developing probably at the beginning of morphogenesis, about 10% of the treated embryos completed morphogenesis and hatched. Hatchees stained with lucifer yellow assured that an effective hole had been made in the eggshell. Some hatchees stained with lucifer yellow were observed even in the presence of 10 g/ml TPA. Muscle differentiation was also investigated in both the presence and the absence of TPA. Laser-treated embryos were cultured and stained with anti-myosin monoclonal antibody. As expected from the above experiment, myosin was stained in the presence of 10 g/ml TPA just as in its absence. These results suggest that TPA has little or no effect on C. elegans embryogenesis.