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ACS Chem Biol,
2006]
Identification of bioactive molecules and their targets impedes the process of drug development. In a recent paper, a genetically tractable organism, the Caenorhabditis elegans worm, is shown to be a viable screening system in which the drug target and the pathway it activates can be readily identified.
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ACS Chem Biol,
2007]
Invertebrate animal models (mainly the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster) are gaining momentum as screening tools in drug discovery. These organisms combine genetic amenability, low cost, and culture conditions compatible with large-scale screens. Their main advantage is to allow high-throughput screening in a physiological context. On the down side, protein divergence between invertebrates and humans causes a high rate of false negatives. Despite important limitations, invertebrate models are an imperfect yet much needed tool to bridge the gap between traditional in vitro and preclinical animal assays.
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CRC Methods in Cellular and Molecular Neuropathology Series,
1999]
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Neuromuscul Disord,
2002]
We investigated the function of dystrophin in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Although nematodes and mammals diverged early in evolution, their muscles share many structural and molecular features, thus rendering C. elegans relevant as a model to study muscle function. Dystrophin, dystrobrevin, dystroglycans and several sarcoglycans have conserved homologues in the genome of C. elegans. The major strength of the model comes from its genetic tractability, which allows the quick and easy manipulation of gene expression, either to inactivate genes, or to create transgenic animals. Over the last 2 years, work on C. elegans dystrophin has led to the identification of a putative new member of the dystrophin-glycoprotein complex, and has brought additional data suggesting that dystrophin mutations affect ion
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Med Sci (Paris),
2003]
C. elegans as a model for human inherited degenerative diseases. The nematode C. elegans is an established model for developmental biology. Since the early 90's, this simple model organism has been increasingly used for studying human disease pathogenesis. C. elegans models based either on the mutagenesis of human disease genes conserved in this nematode or transgenesis with disease genes not conserved in C. elegans show several features that are observed in mammalian models. These observations suggest that the genetic dissection and pharmacological manipulation of disease-like phenotypes in C. elegans will shed light on the cellular mechanisms that are altered in human diseases, and the compounds that may be used as drugs. This review illustrates these aspects by commenting on two inherited degenerative diseases, Duchenne's muscular dystrophy and Huntington's neurodegenerative disease.
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Br J Pharmacol,
2010]
Current high-throughput screening methods for drug discovery rely on the existence of targets. Moreover, most of the hits generated during screenings turn out to be invalid after further testing in animal models. To by-pass these limitations, efforts are now being made to screen chemical libraries on whole animals. One of the most commonly used animal model in biology is the murine model Mus musculus. However, its cost limit its use in large-scale therapeutic screening. In contrast, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, and the fish Danio rerio are gaining momentum as screening tools. These organisms combine genetic amenability, low cost and culture conditions that are compatible with large-scale screens. Their main advantage is to allow high-throughput screening in a whole-animal context. Moreover, their use is not dependent on the prior identification of a target and permits the selection of compounds with an improved safety profile. This review surveys the versatility of these animal models for drug discovery and discuss the options available at this day.
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Adv Exp Med Biol,
2008]
Model organisms are vital to our understanding of human muscle biology and disease. The potential of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster and the zebrafish, Danio rerio, as model genetic organisms for the study of human muscle disease is discussed by examining their muscle biology, muscle genetics and development. The powerful genetic tools available with each organism are outlined. It is concluded that these organisms have already demonstrated potential in facilitating the study of muscle disease and in screening for therapeutic agents.
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Hermann, Editeurs des Sciences et des Arts. Paris, France.,
2002]
L'espce Caenorhabditis elegans fut dcrite en 1900 Alger par E. Maupas, qui s'intressait son mode de reproduction hermaphrodite. Plus tard, vers le milieu du vingtime sicle, V. Nigon et ses collaboratuers Lyon tudirent les reorganizations cellulaires accompagnant la fecundation et les premiers clivages. J. Brun isola les preiers mutants morpholgiques.
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J Muscle Res Cell Motil,
2007]
During evolution, both the architecture and the cellular physiology of muscles have been remarkably maintained. Striated muscles of invertebrates, although less complex, strongly resemble vertebrate skeletal muscles. In particular, the basic contractile unit called the sarcomere is almost identical between vertebrates and invertebrates. In vertebrate muscles, sarcomeric actin filaments are anchored to attachment points called Z-disks, which are linked to the extra-cellular matrix (ECM) by a muscle specific focal adhesion site called the costamere. In this review, we focus on the dense body of the animal model Caenorhabditis elegans. The C. elegans dense body is a structure that performs two in one roles at the same time, that of the Z-disk and of the costamere. The dense body is anchored in the muscle membrane and provides rigidity to the muscle by mechanically linking actin filaments to the ECM. In the last few years, it has become increasingly evident that, in addition to its structural role, the dense body also performs a signaling function in muscle cells. In this paper, we review recent advances in the understanding of the C. elegans dense body composition and function.
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Seminars in Developmental Biology,
1992]
At the 4-cell stage of the C. elegans embryo, three axes can be defined: anterior-posterior (A-P), dorsal-ventral (D-V), and left-right (L-R). The A-P axis first becomes obvious in the newly fertilized 1-cell embryo. Pronouned cytoplasmic assymmetries arise along the A-P axis during the first cell cycle, after which the zygote undergoes a series of stem cell-like cleavages with an A-P orientation of the mitotic spindle; these cleavages generate several somatic founder cells and a primordial germ cell. The D-V and L-R axes are defined by the direction of spindle rotation as the 2-cell embryo divides into four cells. In contrast to the A-P axis, there do not appear to be cellular asymmetries associated with the D-V and L-R axes, and both axes can easily be reversed by micromanipulation. Thus, with respect to the roles that the embryonic axes serve in cell-fate determination in the early C. elegans embryo, it appears that internally transmitted developmental information is differentially segregated along the A-P axis, but not along the D-V or L-R axes. Instead, D-V and L-R differences in the fates of cells within lineages appear to be dictated by differential