I will always remember June 2013 as a whirlwind month of airports, poster sessions, and far too little sleep. On final count, I took 10 flights out of 8 different airports through 11 states, 4 time zones, and 2 countries! After giving myself a bit of July to recover, I am glad to report that June was a marvelous success, inspiring me with new research ideas and lighting a fire under me to get to writing! I believe my next blog may be a photo tour of June 2013, but until then… let’s talk worms!
My last stop for the month was the 19th International C. elegans Meeting at UCLA in Los Angeles, California! In many ways, this trip was reminiscent of my trip to Cancun (discussed here).
For one, the temperatures were similar:
And secondly, another beautiful location:
While roaming through the rows and rows of posters, it was easy to identify the “unreasonably tan” colleagues who had also attended the ICDB conference in Cancun the previous week. Think of it as Where’s Waldo:
And just like Cancun, I learned a lot about really cool science at WORM2013! So, in the spirit of my last blog post, here are my top 5 highlights from my week in LA at WORM2013:
#1: The hot topic: chromatin remodeling during stress!
I remain a bit partial to this topic, as it is the focus of my own research, but I was extremely excited to see so many fabulous talks and posters focusing on the relationship between chromatin remodeling and stress response! In particular, Christian Riedel from Gary Ruvkun’s lab demonstrated that the SWI/SNF chromatin-remodeling complex is required for DAF-16 (FOXO) gene-activation, and ultimately DAF-16 dependent longevity. This work was recently published in Nature Cell Biology and can be found here. Excitingly, David Fay also described a role for SWI/SNF in stress response, as a mediator of the ethanol and stress-response element (ESRE) pathway. These talks, along with multiple posters (including mine!), really begin to illustrate the critical requirement for chromatin remodeling in a multitude of stress response pathways.
#2: Transdifferentiation… is awesome.
As a trainee in developmental biology, and after recently listening to John Gordun discussing the challenges in transdifferentiation at ISDB2013, Joel Rothman’s talk blew me away. While Gordun’s talk emphasized how removal of chromatin marks specific to differentiated cells is one of the most difficult aspects of transdifferentiation, Rothman described a phenomenon in worms in which this process is not even necessary! Expressing a single transcription factor, elt-7, resulted in the conversion of differentiated pharynx into endoderm, even in the absence of cell division. This talk was definitely one of the “THAT IS SO COOL” moments of WORM2013 for me.
#3: Memorable talks about teeth, exercise, and sex
Based on the conference twitter feed and the chatter buzzing about the crowd, the next 3 talks were some of the most memorable, as well as the most unique! Mary Ann Royal of the Driscoll lab showed that 30 minutes of swimming a day results in increased pharyngeal pumping later in life, suggesting that “exercising” has health benefits even in worms! Eric Ragsdale of the Sommer lab wowed the crowd with a gruesome video of P. pacificus chowing down on an unsuspecting C. elegans. His talk then went on to focus on the genetic control of a developmental teeth dimorphism in P. pacificus by a sulfatase encoded by eud-1. Finally, Cheng Shi of the Murphy lab pointed out a phenomenon we all felt we should have noticed previously: N2 worms shrink up to 30% after mating! These animals, in addition to a reduction in size, also are less attractive to other males, and live shorter lives. As male seminal fluid contributes to this phenomenon, it may represent an example of male influence on hermaphrodites to maximize their own reproductive success. Overall, Mary Ann, Eric, and Cheng definitely win the “most memorable” superlatives of WORM2013.
#4: More disease models in C. elegans
As a scientist working in model organisms, I am always excited to hear about disease models in C. elegans, as it is a great way to study the genetic basis of human disease. Susana Garcia from the Ruvkun lab introduced a worm model designed to investigate the toxicity of CUG repeat-containing RNA, which is commonly associated with the human disease myotonic dystrophy. Garcia discovered that the nonsense mediated decay pathway normally functions to clear these toxic repeats, suggesting that it may be a good target for future myotonic dystrophy research.
Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy is due to mutation in the lamin protein. A. Mattout from the Gasser lab demonstrated that this mutation, in worms, leads to failed tissue-specific release of heterochromatin and disrupted muscle function. By restoring chromatin organization through genetic manipulation, Mattout was able to fully rescue muscle function in these animals, suggesting that chromatin mislocalization may be of particular importance in human laminopathies.
#5: New insight into everyone’s favorite topic, insulin-like signaling!
It wouldn’t be a worm meeting without several dozen talks and posters about the FOXO transcription factor DAF-16. This year was no exception, but it was great to see some really remarkable new discoveries in a field that has garnered so much interest in the worm community! To highlight just a few, Adrian Wolstenholme from the University of Bath demonstrated the discovery of the sole glutamate transporter in worms, FGT-1! Additionally, Ronald Tepper from the Bussemaker lab at Columbia gave a great talk on the identification of PQM-1, the main regulator of the class II growth and development genes originally thought to be directly activated by DAF-16.
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As you can tell from the sheer number of talks I’ve mentioned, there was a huge amount of elegant science and interesting discoveries at WORM2013. Visit the meeting’s website for full abstracts and dates of future WORM events!
From Behind the Scope 