You don’t have to look anywhere else to see if the gene of your interest is a genetic model for human disease! Both manually curated and orthology-based human disease related data for genes is presented on the gene page in the the ‘Overview’ section and in the ‘Human Diseases’ widget in the side-bar. This data indicates whether the gene is an ‘Experimental model’ for a human disease based on experimental evidences from the manually curated literature, or a ‘Potential model’ based on orthology with a human gene/s. You can also search by a disease term (DO term) from the autocomplete search box at the top of every web page, eg., ‘Alzheimer’s disease’. Currently, over 250 genes have been manually curated, for their relevance to human disease and several hundred genes are flagged as potential models, based on orthology to human disease genes. The relevant human genes from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database and associated diseases are displayed as well. Currently we are working to improve disease displays and will continue to expand this data. Please let us know if we have missed a published experimental disease model in C. elegans!
Worm Breeder's Gazette submission deadline
Dear Worm Researchers,
The deadline for submissions for the next issue of The Worm Breeder’s Gazette is Monday, March 10. The date is somewhat flexible, so if you need an extra day or two, please email me.
In addition to articles summarizing research results, we also welcome announcements, editorials, and artwork. We would also like to include articles describing the use of nematodes in teaching. In short, we will include anything that would be of interest to researchers or teachers of nematode biology.
Articles should be a single page in length and should be submitted through our web site: http://www.wormbook.org/wbg/. You should be able to register on the Gazette site, but it may take as much as a day before you receive email confirmation. If you have trouble registering, or don’t want to fool with it, please send your article to me and I will upload it for you.
Thank you for your interest in The Worm Breeder’s Gazette.
Sincerely,
Jane
WormMine service disruption, 24 February 2014
WormMine will be unavailable on Monday, February 24 due to a storage upgrade. We apologize for the inconvenience.
C. elegans paper wins AAAS Newcomb Cleaveland Prize for best Science paper
Congratulations to Jarrell, T.A., et. al, (Science 337: 437-444, 2012), the authors of a study describing the complete wiring diagram for the part of the nervous system that controls mating behavior in the C. elegans male . This paper was chosen as the most outstanding paper published in Science in the year June 2012 to May 2013.
Onchocerca volvulus
The new release (WS241) of WormBase includes Onchocerca volvulus, a filiarial nematode of clade III.
Onchocerca volvulus is a gonochoristic filarial nematode parasite of humans causing Onchocerciasis. Onchocerciasis, or River Blindness, is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) which affects over 37 million people, mainly in Africa. It is a severely debilitating disease, which is transmitted to humans by the bite of Simulium blackflies that live and breed near fast-flowing streams and rivers.
As it has been added as core WormBase nematode, we would like to welcome feedback from the community to improve the curation and representation of this new member species.