The genome of the heartworm Dirofilaria immitis has been added to the upcoming WS240 release of WormBase. The data shown is based on the latest version of the genome and geneset provided by the Blaxter lab in Edinburgh.
D.immitis is an important parasite of dogs and transmitted by mosquitos in warmer climate zones (especially throughout southern Europe and the Americas) and is also commonly known as dog heart worm.
Panagrellus redivivus, a free-living nematode often used to study evolution of developmental and behavioural processes in C.elegans has been added to the WS240 release of WormBase.
While its main importance for WormBase is for evolutionary conservation of pathways,P.redivivus is also used as easy to breed microworm feed in aquaculture.
We would like to thank Marissa Macchietto for providing us the data which is also available at the INSDC and as published in Genetics.
We would like to congratulate the Berriman and Gasser labs to their articles on the Australian and European Haemonchus contortus genome assemblies published in the most recent edition of Genome Biology
Both assemblies will be available at WormBase as part of the upcoming WS239 release.
Frontiers in Genetics of Aging is hosting a research topic, “Biology of cognitive aging: model systems, technologies and beyond”. The topic covers normal aging, Alzheimer’s diseases and other neurodegenerative diseases in C. elegans, flies, snails, bees and other model species.
– Deadline of abstract submission is Oct 30, 2013.
– Deadline of manuscript submission is Feb 28, 2014.
Please see link here. If the link does not work, please try: http://bit.ly/1f145xR
Shin Murakami, Ph.D.
Topic Editor of Frontiers in Genetics of Aging
We are very happy to announce the winners of the two 2013 Faucett Catalyst Awards. The Awards, which are meant to stimulate research by C. elegans scientists on problems relating to parasitic nematodes, will be given to Jonathan Hodgkin of Oxford University (Comparing surface coat biochemistry in C. elegans and parasitic nematodes) and Jennifer Watts of Washington State University (Pilot studies to determine if the dietary fatty acid dihomogamma linolenic acid (DGLA) causes sterility in plant-parasitic nematodes). The evaluating committee (Martin Chalfie, Barton Slatko, SusanStrome, and William Sullivan) received twenty thoughtful proposals and narrowing the field to just two winners was very difficult. The committee hopes to raise additional funds, so that we can have a new competition next year.