Caenorhabditis elegans is an important experimental organism for the study of recombination during meiosis. Here, we provide methods for the use of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for the study of crossing over in C. elegans.

Background The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is one of the popular model hosts for the study of the evolutionarily conserved mechanism of microbial pathogenesis and innate immunity. C. elegans can be effectively used to study the dynamics of polymicrobial infections. Proteus mirabilis, an opportunistic pathogen, does not cause death in C. elegans. In this study the C. elegans was pre-infected...

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has served as a fruitful setting for cell death research for over three decades. A conserved pathway of four genes, egl-1/BH3-only, ced-9/Bcl-2, ced-4/Apaf-1, and ced-3/caspase, coordinates most developmental cell deaths in C. elegans. However, other cell death forms, programmed and pathological, have also been described in this animal. Some of these share mo...

Mutations in the Caenorhabditis elegans maternal-effect gene clk-1 affect cellular, developmental, and behavioral timing. They result in a slowing of the cell cycle, embryonic and postembryonic development, reproduction, and aging, as well as of the defecation, swimming, and pharyngeal pumping cycles. Here, we analyze the defecation behavior in clk-1 mutants, phenotypically and genetically. Whe...

In the androdioecious nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, self-fertilization is the predominant mode of reproduction. Nevertheless, males do occur, and it is still unclear if these represent a selective advantage or merely an evolutionary relict. In this study, we first tested the hypothesis that the production of males might benefit invaders to resident populations. We added single, GFP-marked wo...

The Caenorhabditis elegans germ line provides a model for understanding how signaling from a stem cell niche promotes continued mitotic divisions at the expense of differentiation. Here we report cellular analyses designed to identify germline stem cells within the germline mitotic region of adult hermaphrodites. Our results support several conclusions. First, all germ cells within the mitotic ...

The 97-megabase genomic sequence of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans reveals over 19,000 genes. More than 40 percent of the predicted protein products find significant matches in other organisms. There is a variety of repeated sequences, both local and dispersed. The distinctive distribution of some repeats and highly conserved genes provides evidence for a regional organization of the chrom...

The generation of genetic mutants in Caenorhabditis elegans has long relied on the selection of mutations in large-scale screens. Directed mutagenesis of specific loci in the genome would greatly speed up analysis of gene function. Here, we adapt the CRISPR/Cas9 system to generate mutations at specific sites in the C. elegans genome.

Recently, we reported that Streptococcus pyogenes kills Caenorhabditis elegans by the use of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Here we show that diverse streptococcal species cause death of C. elegans larvae in proportion to the level of H2O2 produced. H2O2 may mask the effects of other pathogenicity factors of catalase-negative bacteria in the C. elegans infection model.

Nervous systems are characterized by an astounding degree of cellular diversity. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has served as a valuable model system to define the genetic programs that serve to generate cellular diversity in the nervous system. This review discusses neuronal diversity in C. elegans and provides an overview of the molecular mechanisms that define and specify neuronal cell ...