CRISPR workshop at the 2015 C.elegans meeting

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CRISPR-based Strategies for Genome Engineering
Announcing the “CRISPR revolution” workshop to be held during the final plenary session of the 2015 International C. elegans Meeting,
June 28th, 10:30am – 12:00pm, Royce Hall Auditorium
Organizers: Mike Boxem, Daniel Dickinson, Alexandre Paix

CRISPR is a rapidly evolving technology that is quickly becoming an essential tool for every C. elegans lab. We would like to bring together representatives of the various groups that are developing CRISPR-based approaches for C. elegans to discuss current strategies for genome modifications. Specific topics to be discussed will include screening strategies, improving efficiency, target site selection, and guidelines for making different kinds of modifications. The workshop will conclude with an overview by Geraldine Seydoux of the status of CRISPR-based methods in C. elegans, based on previous reports and current methods presented in the workshop or elsewhere at the meeting.

For members of the community who are actively developing CRISPR methods, the workshop will serve as an opportunity to compare notes, share ideas, and stay current on the efforts of others. For those who are “end users” of these methods, it will be an opportunity to learn the latest approaches, obtain protocols, ask questions and seek advice.

Researchers who actively develop CRISPR-based approaches or are making technical improvements are invited to share their results and experiences. If you would like to speak at this workshop, please submit your abstract under the category “V, Gene Regulation and Genomics, Novel Genetic Technologies” to the 2015 C. elegans Meeting.

If you have questions about this workshop, contact Mike Boxem.

WS247: C. briggsae genes have descriptions!

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In the previous WS246 release we introduced automated gene descriptions for C. elegans genes that lacked a manually written one. These gene descriptions include information related to orthology, process, function and sub-cellular localization (when these data-types have been curated in the WormBase database), giving the user a quick overview of the gene. The current WS247 release includes automated descriptions for over 18,000 C. briggsae genes.  Check out the C. briggase gene pages to view these descriptions under ‘Overview’!  In future releases, we will add genes from many more species!  Also, WormBase is working on user-friendly forms which you can use to edit these descriptions and make them better.

2nd Bridging the Divide Workshop to be held at the 2015 C. elegans Meeting

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Parasitic Nematodes: Announcing the 2nd “Bridging the Divide” workshop to be held at the 2015 International C. elegans Meeting (June 24th, 2:00pm – 5:00pm, Northwest Auditorium)

Each year infections of animals and plants by parasitic nematodes cause many billions of dollars of agricultural damage. Over a billion people worldwide, particularly in developing nations, are infected by nematodes and suffer from the resulting debilitating diseases. Currently, only a few investigators address problems of parasitic nematodes using C. elegans. To encourage and facilitate more interactions between the C. elegans and parasitic nematode communities, a workshop was held at the 2013 International C. elegans Meeting in which experts in plant, animal and human parasitic nematodes spoke on the life history and unique biology of these parasitic species and on outstanding issues in their field. A key goal of this session was to make C. elegans scientists aware of the issues and problems that parasitic nematode researchers face and pave the way for applying the powerful approaches and technologies that have advanced C. elegans research to parasitic nematodes.

We are hosting a modified version of this session at the start of the upcoming 2015 C. elegans meeting (our session and registration both take place in the afternoon of June 24) in which C. elegans researchers who have worked with other nematodes are invited to share their results and experiences. If you would like to speak at this session, please send your abstract(s) by May 21 to Marty Chalfie.

WormBase release WS247

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Orthology update

* Data from Inparanoid was updated to version 8
* Orthology data for all core nemtatodes and model organisms was imported from WormBase Parasite release 1
* OMA and TreeFam data was removed in preparation for an update (TreeFam accessions will remain as database crossreferences)

Expression and Picture update

* A large set of expression graphs for other nematodes produced by Yanai’s has been added

RNASeq data

The RNASeq data will become richer in WS247.

There will also be “control” mean and median FPKM values derived from the data which does not have a specific experimental condition applied.

New/updated reference genomes

This release we see a rebuild of C. elegans, B. malayi and O. volvulus. Various data classes and curational activites have been undertaken on these species since the release of WS246