Caenorhabditis elegans as a model for parasitic nematodes

• Published in: International Journal for Parasitology Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 395 - 411
• Main Authors: Bürglin, Thomas R., Lobos, Edgar, Blaxter, Mark L.
• Format: Book Review Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01-03-1998; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Evolution; Brugia malayi; Brugia malayi - genetics; Caenorhabditis elegans; Caenorhabditis elegans - genetics; Caenorhabditis elegans - physiology; Caenorhabditis elegans - ultrastructure; Classical genetics, quantitative genetics, hybrids; Cuticle; Dauer larva; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gene Expression; Genes, Helminth - physiology; Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution; Genome; Genome Project; Invertebrata; Molecular techniques; Caenorhabditis elegans; Cuticle; Dauer larva; Brugia malayi; Genome Project; Molecular techniques; Biological evolution; Parasite; Review; Phylogeny; Helmintha; Nemathelminthia; Models; Invertebrata; Genome; Nematoda
• ISSN: 0020-7519; 1879-0135
• DOI: 10.1016/S0020-7519(97)00208-7

Caenorhabditis elegans has become a popular model system for genetic and molecular research, since it is easy to maintain and has a very fast life-cycle. Its genome is small and a virtually complete physical map in the form of cosmids and YAC clones exists. Thus it was chosen as a model system by the Genome Project for sequencing, and it is expected that by 1998 the complete sequence (100 million bp) will be available. The accumulated wealth of information about
C. elegans should be a boon for nematode parasitologists, as many aspects of gene regulation and function can be studied in this simple model system. A large array of techniques is available to study many aspects of
C. elegans biology. In combination with genome projects for parasitic nematodes, conserved genes can be identified rapidly. We expect many new areas of fertile research that will lead to new insights in helminth parasitology, which are based not only on the information gained from
C. elegans per se, but also from its use as a heterologous system to study parasitic genes.