Braeckman BP et al. (2002) Aging Cell "Rebuttal to Van Voorhies: 'the influence of metabolic rate on longevity in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans'."

Braeckman BP, Houthoofd K, Vanfleteren JR

[Aging Cell, 2002]

The papers by Van Voorhies in Free Radical Biology & Medicine (33, 587-596, 2002) and in this journal claim that the major longevity-extending mutations in C. elegans essentially act by reducing metabolic rate as predicted by the rate-of-living theory, and do not alter any metabolically independent mechanism specific to aging. In contrast, we found no evidence of a reduction in metabolic rate in these mutants using different experimental approaches. Now, Van Voorhies challenges the accuracy of our experimental results.

Dehn AS et al. (2022) PLoS Biol "Binucleation ramps up gene expression meeting the physiological demands of an organism."

Dehn AS, Losick VP

[PLoS Biol, 2022]

In this issue of PLOS Biology, van Rijnberk and colleagues show how polyploidy, via binucleation, enables Caenorhabditis elegans intestinal cells to ramp up gene expression supplying the oocytes with the necessary lipids for optimal organismal growth and reproductive fitness.

Sendinc E et al. (2015) Cell "Remodeling Your Way out of Cell Cycle."

Sendinc E, Shi Y, Jambhekar A

[Cell, 2015]

Throughout development, proliferative progenitors lose their mitotic potential, exit the cell cycle, and differentiate. In this issue, Ruijtenberg and van den Heuvel identify an important lineage-specific role for a SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex that collaborates with core cell-cycle regulators to promote cell-cycle exit and terminal muscle cell differentiation.

Partridge L et al. (1992) Nature "Evolutionary biology. What the sperm count costs."

Partridge L, Harvey PH

[Nature, 1992]

Dissecting the sex life of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans has already provided surprises for biologists interested in life-history theory. In a report on page 456 of this issue, Van Voorhies throws another spanner in the works by demonstrating that the costs of producing sperm are not as negligible as we might have thought.

Goutte C (2002) Dev Cell "Genetics leads the way to the accomplices of presenilins."

Goutte C

[Dev Cell, 2002]

Presenilins mediate they-secretase cleavage of Notch transmembrane receptors as well as the transmembrane P-amyloid precursor protein (PAPP), but they are not thought to accomplish this alone. Recent genetic screens in C. elegans, presented in this issue of Developmental Cell, identify two genes that are essential to gamma-secretase activity and may interact with presenilins.

Motegi F et al. (2007) J Cell Biol "Revisiting the role of microtubules in C. elegans polarity."

Motegi F, Seydoux G

[J Cell Biol, 2007]

Cells must break symmetry to acquire polarity. Microtubules have been implicated in the induction of asymmetry in several cell types, but their role in the Caenorhabditis elegans zygote, a classic polarity model, has remained uncertain. One study (see Tsai and Ahringer on p. 397 of this issue) brings new light to this problem by demonstrating that severe loss of microtubules impairs polarity onset in C. elegans.

Van Voorhies WA (2002) Aging Cell "Rebuttal to Braeckman et al: 'Assessing metabolic activity in again Caenorhabditis elegans: concepts and controversies'."

Van Voorhies WA

[Aging Cell, 2002]

The reviews by Braechman et al. and Van Voorhies in this issue of Aging Cell concur on the potential importance of metabolic rate and function to longevity in C. elegans. These reviews differ though, on their assessment of whether long-lived C. elegans mutants have a reduced metabolic rate compared to wild-type worms. At the centre of this disagreement are two main issues: the importance of measurement conditions when conducting metabolic assays on C. elegans, and which techniques are appropriate for measuring the metabolic rate of an organism and subsequent analysis of such data. These issues are interconnected; if the conditions under which an organism's metabolic rate are measured have a large impact on the resulting data, conclusions drawn from data collected from animals under different conditions may be invalid irrespective of the validity of the measurement methods. Conversely, measurement techniques which produce spurious data cannot be used to draw accurate conclusions about the metabolic rate of an organism, regardless of the conditions under which the organism was maintained.