April 26, 2013

It’s Worm Week here at HighMag Blog.  Worms are amazing little creatures, and the species C. elegans is an invaluable model system for studying cell and developmental biology.  Their genome is sequenced, their development is precise and well-documented, and their bodies and embryos are translucent (making them photogenic under a microscope).  Today’s image is from the same lab that brought Tuesday’s image…worm gonads rock!

Blurb and image from Christian R. Eckmann:
The image is an immuno-stained part of an extruded C. elegans hermaphrodite gonad; germ cell nuclei (magenta) and the apical membrane (green). The germ stem cells reside at the closed end of this tube like tissue. In wild type, the germ stem cells exit the mitotic zone, entering meiosis further away from the closed tip and start differentiating into sperm or oocytes. 

The image posted earlier this week is from the Gracida and Eckmann paper that identifies a nuclear receptor that protects germ stem cell integrity, and in turn fertility, after dietary perturbations.

Gracida, X. & Eckmann, C. (2013). Fertility and Germline Stem Cell Maintenance under Different Diets Requires nhr-114/HNF4 in C. elegans Current Biology, 23 (7), 607-613 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.02.034