WormBase regularly gets data from leading stock centers such as the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center (CGC) and National Bioresource Project (NBRP) . Release WS285 contains an extra-large update, with more than 1,500 new strains imported from the CGC. Perhaps there is one that is the perfect study object for you?
Include strain names in publications!
We urge you to explicitly state strains used in your experiments to foster reproducibility and to help WormBase biocurators get your results into WormBase.
Historically, C. elegans researchers just stated the alleles used, based on the reasonable idea that all strains were close to Brenner’s N2. As the years and hundreds of worm generations passed, strains diverged. We usually don’t know the full genotype of our strains (and really won’t even with whole genome sequencing since copy number variation is often hard to detect). Including strain names will greatly help sort out any background effects that are realized later.
We thus would like to see editors and reviewers (both anonymous and within the laboratory) help enforce the inclusion of strain names in C. elegans papers.
-Paul Sternberg
Registering Lab, Strain and Allele designations
If you would like to register a new lab and/or receive strain and allele designations please consult the WormBase documentation page here. This page also describes the nomenclature that WormBase requires and uses to describe genes, alleles, strains, gene knockouts, modifiers (suppressors, revertants and enhancers), and chromosomal aberrations (duplications, deficiencies, inversions and translocations) .