Caenorhabditis elegans News and Research

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Caenorhabditis elegans is a free-living, transparent nematode (roundworm), about 1 mm in length, which lives in temperate soil environments.

Researchers reveal nerve circuitry regulating worms' response to changing temperatures

Nagoya University researchers and colleagues have revealed the nerve circuitry regulating the response of a tiny soil worm to changing temperatures.

13 Mar 2020

Researchers discover glial cells that control stress response, extend lifespan in worms

While many of us worry about proteins aggregating in our brains as we age and potentially causing Alzheimer's disease or other types of neurodegeneration, we may not realize that some of the same proteins are aggregating in our muscles, setting us up for muscle atrophy in old age.

23 Feb 2020

New C. elegans model will accelerate study of a rare disease

The model will permit to accelerate and reduce the price of the research, which is studying the mechanisms and the possible pharmacological targets for the neuronal alterations of this disease.

20 Feb 2020

Natural antioxidant reverses reproductive harms caused by BPA exposure in worms

From plastics to pesticides, it seems like every week delivers fresh news about the dangers of endocrine disruptors--chemicals in the environment that alter the body's hormones and can lead to reproductive, developmental, neurologic and immune problems and cancer.

6 Feb 2020

Parkinson’s disease could be prevented by gut microbes

One common gut organism that helps us digest food better could also be a powerful instrument in preventing or reversing the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD), according to a recent study. The changes are due to the ability of this bacterium to delay the build-up of a toxic protein involved in this in the disease condition, or even to eliminate the toxin altogether.

14 Jan 2020

New tool could speed up neuroscience research into pheromones

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have developed a tool to identify molecular receptors in worms that are involved in sensing pheromones related to mating, an advance that could speed up neuroscience research into pheromones by eliminating months of work.

14 Jan 2020

Study sheds new light on impact of common plasticizer on human reproductive health

Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the New York State Department of Health have discovered how a common plasticizer associated with human reproductive abnormalities likely does its damage at the molecular level.

10 Jan 2020

Researchers develop 'flash and freeze' method for studying nerve connections

Uniting structure and function of synapses is challenging: Function is studied in living tissue, measuring electrical signals at millisecond precision with electrophysiology, while the observation of fine structure at nanometer scale requires tissue to be fixed for electron microscopy.

9 Jan 2020

Yeasts derived from food can reduce multi-drug resistant fungal infections

A study by researchers in the United States and India has shown that probiotic yeasts derived from food are able to reduce the virulence of, and even prevent infections by, several types of fungi that are responsible for life-threatening infections in hospitalized and immune-compromised individuals, including the multi-drug resistant Candida auris, which was recently listed as an urgent threat by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in its 2019 Antibiotic Resistance Threats report.

10 Dec 2019

Study may provide novel therapeutic approach for Huntington's, Parkinson's diseases

Insights from their study may provide a novel therapeutic approach for diseases such as Huntington's and Parkinson's.

8 Dec 2019

Metabolic dysfunction found to be primary cause of Alzheimer's disease

A team of researchers led by Yale-NUS College has found evidence that metabolic dysfunction is a primary cause of Alzheimer's disease.

17 Oct 2019

Brain's neural activity plays a role in human aging, life span

The brain's neural activity-;long implicated in disorders ranging from dementia to epilepsy-;also plays a role in human aging and life span, according to research led by scientists in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School.

16 Oct 2019

Findings could open up new research avenues into how heme tolerance occurs in humans

Most people have some idea of how important iron is to their health, but Iqbal Hamza, professor in Animal and Avian Sciences, has made his seventeen-year career at the University of Maryland all about the study of iron and heme trafficking and regulation in the body.

1 Oct 2019

Researchers identify compounds that influence time to sexual maturity and lifespan

Every day, people are exposed to myriad chemicals, both natural and synthetic. Some of these compounds may affect human physical development, but testing them directly on people would be grossly unethical.

20 Aug 2019

Researchers identify epigenetic mechanism that may strongly influence healthy aging

Researchers at the Max Delbrueck Center for Molecular Medicine have identified an epigenetic mechanism that appears to strongly influence healthy aging.

9 Aug 2019

Unexpected discovery could improve treatment of cancer, other diseases

EU-funded researchers have discovered an important new mechanism by which cells flag and repair damage to their DNA - an unexpected finding that could improve the treatment of diseases such as cancer.

23 Jul 2019

Molecular switches may control lifespan and healthspan separately, genetic discovery suggests

Aging research indicates that better healthspan--the quality of life as we age--may be more important than lifespan.

17 Jul 2019

Study reveals first complete wiring diagram of an animal's nervous system

In a study published online today in Nature, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine describe the first complete wiring diagram of the nervous system of an animal, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, used by scientists worldwide as a model organism.

4 Jul 2019

Scientists discover a new way to kill drug-resistant parasites

Over one billion people, including 880 million children, are infected with intestinal nematode worms, such as roundworms, hookworms and tapeworms, according to the World Health Organization.

2 Jul 2019

Study raises the prospect of new therapies to delay muscle atrophy

Muscle decline caused by aging and certain diseases could be dramatically slowed by stopping a chain reaction that damages cells, new research shows.

10 Jun 2019