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Mechanosensation methods updated in WormBook
Dear Worm Researchers,
Assaying mechanosensation, by Marty Chalfie, Anne Hart, Cathy Rankin, and Miriam Goodman, has been published in the Behavioral assays section of WormMethods. This chapter updates and expands the mechanosensation assays currently found in the 2006 chapter, Behavior, edited by Anne Hart. In addition to updating assays for gentle and harsh touch, precipice response, nictation, head withdrawal and foraging, tap reflex, habituation to tap, and nose touch, the new chapter describes mechanical stimulation during electrical or optical recording.
Please proceed to read this chapter and others on nematode biology at http://www.wormbook.org/. If you have any comments or suggestions, please submit them via the Feedback page on wormbook.org.
Thank you for your interest in WormBook,
Jane Mendel
Editor, WormBook
Worm Breeders Gazette submission deadline
Dear Worm Researchers,
The deadline for submissions to the next issue of The Worm Breeder’s Gazette is Monday, September 15, with publication following about a week later. While we will accept all articles, we would like to emphasize CRISPR methodology in this issue. So, if you have developed or improved any techniques you think would be useful to the community, please take the time to write up your protocol and submit it at http://www.wormbook.org/wbg/.
In addition to articles summarizing research, we also welcome announcements (particularly for new labs), editorials, humor, and artwork.
Articles should be a single page in length.
Looking forward to your contributions to the Gazette,
Jane
Jane Mendel
Editor, WormBook
Trichuris suis
A new genome of a zoonotic whip worm species, Trichuris suis, has been made publicly available by the Gasser lab of Melbourne University.
As part of the research into the unique properties of the genome, a male and a female worm has been sequenced, assembled and annotated as described in Genome and transcriptome of the porcine whipworm Trichuris suis. Jex AR, Nejsum P, Schwarz EM, Hu L, Young ND, Hall RS, Korhonen PK, Liao S, Thamsborg S, Xia J, Xu P, Wang S, Scheerlinck JP, Hofmann A, Sternberg PW, Wang J, Gasser RB. Nat Genet. 2014 Jul;46(7):701-6. doi: 10.1038/ng.3012. Epub 2014 Jun 15.
It has been included as part of the WS243 release of WormBase and is shown on a Genome Browser, as well as on orthology sections of genes. Flatfiles of the raw data are also available on ftp://ftp.wormbase.org.