Meng, Jin et al. (2021) International Worm Meeting "Global profiling of distinct cysteine redox forms reveals wide-ranging redox regulation in C. elegans"

Blackwell, Keith, Yang, Jing, Wu, Ziyun, Carroll , Kate, Meng, Jin, Fu, Ling, Liu, Keke, B. Ferreira, Renan, Tian, Caiping, Jung, Youngeun

[International Worm Meeting, 2021]

Post-translational changes in the redox state of cysteine residues can rapidly and reversibly alter protein functions, thereby modulating biological processes. The nematode C. elegans is an ideal model organism for studying cysteine-mediated redox signaling at a network level. Here we present a comprehensive, quantitative, and site-specific profile of the intrinsic reactivity of the cysteinome in wild-type C. elegans. We also describe a global characterization of the C. elegans redoxome in which we measured changes in three major cysteine redox forms after H2O2 treatment. Our data revealed redox-sensitive events in translation, growth signaling, and stress response pathways, and identified redox-regulated cysteines that are important for signaling through the p38 MAP kinase (MAPK) pathway. Our in-depth proteomic dataset provides a molecular basis for understanding redox signaling in vivo, and will serve as a valuable and rich resource for the field of redox biology.

Kim, Daeyeon et al. (2011) International Worm Meeting "Biomechanical analysis of C. elegans locomotion."

Kim, Daeyeon, Weitz, David, Park, Jin-Sung, Shin, Jennifer H.

[International Worm Meeting, 2011]

The characteristics of C. elegans' locomotion are sensitively regulated by mechanical environments. For example, the worm's wavelength and amplitude were shown to be altered in different gelatin concentrations and swimming velocity of a worm was enhanced in a granular medium compared to that in a simple fluid [1, 2]. Therefore, understanding the mechanism behind the differential responses of C. elegans in mechanically different environments is an intriguing problem to gain insight on mechano-sensation of the worm. In this study, we investigate the surface rigidity dependent crawling motion of a worm as well as swimming motion in colloidal suspensions. In crawling gait, the wild-type worm adaptively changes the shapes of its sinusoidal waveform when the surface rigidity of solid agar plates is varied. However, mechanosensation-defective worms (mec-4 and mec-10 mutants) show insensitivity to the changes in the surface rigidity. The wild-type worm modifies its waveform by decreasing the interval of muscle contractions and increasing the extent of them as the surface rigidity increases. This modulation pattern of the muscle contraction provides more propulsive force to the worm against the environments of higher loads. In swimming gait, worms changed their swimming speeds in different volume percents of colloidal suspensions of 600 nm sized polystyrene beads. In low volume percents of colloids (0.4 ~ 8 %), the swimming speed was similar to that in the water whereas it significantly increased in 12 and 16 % of colloids. Through a detailed biomechanical analysis, we suggest that this enhancement in swimming speed results from the interplay between the shear thinning fluid properties of 12 and 16 % colloids and the unique stroke pattern of the worm. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) grant 2010-0016886. [1] Berri et al., HFSP J. 3, 186 (2009). [2] Jung et al., Chaos 18, 041106 (2008).