My eye was caught yesterday by this article in the Guardian, describing the voyage into space (on the shuttle Atlantis) of some nematode worms from Bristol. Apparently some worms that were on board Columbia, when it broke up on re-entry in 2003 - the container which held them was discovered several weeks later.
According to the press pack for the mission (STS-129, which is also taking parts for the International Space Station), there are two experiments (known as CERISE). One will investigate the effect of microgravity on RNA interference, and the other (the one described in the Guardian) the effect of the space environment on protein phosphorylation and signal transduction in muscle fibres. A search of the NASA site (www.nasa.gov) for the word "nematode" will find some other experiments that have been carried out on C. elegans in space.
This mission is STS-129 and there is a launch blog here. There is lots more about C. elegans on the Caenorhabditis elegans WWW server maintained at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Later note : just discovered this NASA resource, "Ask a C. elegans expert", part of their Web of Life site.
Showing posts with label C. elegans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C. elegans. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Monday, May 14, 2007
Silencing Genomes
Another site "found" via the Internet Scout Project.
Silencing Genomes is to do with RNAi. The discovery of RNAi won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2006.
I quote from the Silencing Genomes site:
"RNAi is a mechanism that down-regulates gene expression when double-stranded RNA (ds-RNA) molecules that correspond to a part of a "target gene" are present in a cell. By deliberately introducing defined sequences of dsRNA into living organisms, biologists can observe the physiological consequences of "silencing" virtually any gene in C. elegans, as well as other plants and animals."
There are parts of the site dealing with culturing E. coli, C. elegans, observing wild type and mutant C. elegans, and with RNAi.
Silencing Genomes is to do with RNAi. The discovery of RNAi won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2006.
I quote from the Silencing Genomes site:
"RNAi is a mechanism that down-regulates gene expression when double-stranded RNA (ds-RNA) molecules that correspond to a part of a "target gene" are present in a cell. By deliberately introducing defined sequences of dsRNA into living organisms, biologists can observe the physiological consequences of "silencing" virtually any gene in C. elegans, as well as other plants and animals."
There are parts of the site dealing with culturing E. coli, C. elegans, observing wild type and mutant C. elegans, and with RNAi.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Electron microscopy, kinases and C. elegans
Three websites I now know about, thanks to the WebWatch column in the journal Biotechniques (www.biotechniques.com).
That column in the March issue contains details of an elcetron microscopy site at the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zurich, at http://www.microscopy.ethz.ch/. It has information on how the various techniques work, as well as selected images.
The same column also has details of BANMOKI, a database of bacterial nucleoside monophosphate kinases (http://www.ces.clemson.edu/compbio/databases/kinases/), and WormBook, an online review of the biology of C. elegans (http://www.wormbook.org/). This is open access and includes protocols, biology, genomics and a lot else.
That column in the March issue contains details of an elcetron microscopy site at the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zurich, at http://www.microscopy.ethz.ch/. It has information on how the various techniques work, as well as selected images.
The same column also has details of BANMOKI, a database of bacterial nucleoside monophosphate kinases (http://www.ces.clemson.edu/compbio/databases/kinases/), and WormBook, an online review of the biology of C. elegans (http://www.wormbook.org/). This is open access and includes protocols, biology, genomics and a lot else.
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