Blaxter M et al. (2012) BMC Biol "The worm in the world and the world in the worm."

Denver DR, Blaxter M

[BMC Biol, 2012]

Caenorhabditis elegans is a preeminent model organism, but the natural ecology of this nematode has been elusive. A four-year survey of French orchards published in BMC Biology reveals thriving populations of C. elegans (and Caenorhabditis briggsae) in rotting fruit and plant stems. Rather than being simply a 'soil nematode', C. elegans appears to be a 'plant-rot nematode'. These studies signal a growing interest in the integrated genomics and ecology of these tractable animals.

Dernburg AF (2001) J Cell Biol "Here, there, and everywhere: Kinetochore function on holocentric chromosomes."

Dernburg AF

[J Cell Biol, 2001]

Cytologists have long observed that individual eukaryotic species segregate their chromosomes in one of two apparently different ways. Monocentric chromosomes attach to microtubules at a particular region (the centromere) and move toward the pole during anaphase with the centromere leading. In contrast, holocentric chromosomes bind to microtubules along their entire length and move broadside to the pole from the metaphase plate. Holocentric chromosomes are scattered throughout the plant and animal kingdoms, and may be products of convergent evolution. Alternatively, the ancestral eukaryotic chromosome may have been holocentric, in which case the restriction of kinetic activity to a specialized region must have been an evolutionary event that occurred again and again.

Dillin A (2003) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A "The specifics of small interfering RNA specificity."

Dillin A

[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2003]

The discovery of transgene silencing in plants and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) interference in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans has led to the latest revolution in molecular biology, RNA interference (RNAi). Over 10 years ago it was noted that several transgenic plant lines each containing the same ectopic transgene not only failed to be expressed but also inhibited the expression of the endogenous gene. Similarly, a determined Craig Mello and Andy Fire, attempting to reduce gene function using using antisense RNA in the worm, discovered a minor contaminant in their antisense RNA preparation effectively and repeatedly reduced expression of the endogenous gene. In both cases, dsRNA homologous to the gene of interest was responsible for these observations. In the last 4 years, these discoveries have been extended to include protozoa,