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For worm lovers

This one is for all nerds who love the small worm and can’t stop working with them!
(a poem by Nikita Jhaveri)

I am a happy free-living worm
Producing both egg and sperm
Whom scientists use to confirm
Undiscovered theories and reaffirm

My transparent body helps you find
Novel pathways, that blow your mind
Making different theories align
With facts that are hard to malign

Keeping me in your lab is very safe
I won’t bite or cause any chafe
My bed and breakfast are easy to make
One pertidish, some bacteria and I am happy as a flake

Please, use me to explore your macrocosm
After all, I am fun and awesome
I promise to make your inquisitive world blossom!

A simple method to dramatically increase C. elegans germline microinjection efficiency

In this bioRxiv manuscript, Gibney et al., (2023) describe a paintbrush based method to improve the speed and survival of microinjections in C. elegans. The authors show a significantly higher injection efficiency when using a paintbrush instead of a pick to transfer worms to and from the agarose pad. The technique is simple as demonstrated in their videos.

2023 International C. elegans conference in Glasgow

The 24th C. elegans international conference will be held this year June 24-28 in Glasgow (Scotland). It is the first time the event is being organized outside of the United States. Both in-person and virtual attending options will be provided.

See the website for more details: https://genetics-gsa.org/celegans2023/

Back in action

The briggsae.org site is now up and running.

We are live (almost!)

file:///Volumes/Secomba/bpg/Boxcryptor/Google%20Drive/TiddlyWiki/live-icon.webp

The briggsae.org website is finally back on track after almost one and half years!

The site went down after changing the service provider. The problem was with database backup that wasn’t working when imported to a new account. It took considerable time and efforts to fix the issue. Currently, the site is being served from a subdirectory of our lab website (www.macwormlab.net). We hope to restore the original site soon.

Stevens et al. (2022) report reference genomes for two new C. briggsae strains

Stevens et al. (2022). Chromosome-Level Reference Genomes for Two Strains of Caenorhabditis briggsae: An Improved Platform for Comparative Genomics. Genome Biology and Evolution.

https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/14/4/evac042/6554914

This paper reports chromosome-level sequences for two C. briggsae strains QX1410 (closely-related AF16) and VX34 (a highly divergent strain isolated in China). Recombinant inbred lines were also isolated to create a recombination map and chromosomal domains. RNA sequencing data were generated to annotate genes. The new genomes improve resources for C. briggsae and promise to accelerate comparative genomic and evolutionary studies involving nematodes.