Lindemans, M: Hormones in Caenorhabditis elegans

Since the publication of its genome in 1998, the small free-living soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has rapidly reached the status of a supermodel, not only as a platform in the study of parasitic nematodes, but also as a model to study selected human diseases. Despite the completion of its genome, very little was known about neuropeptide hormone signaling in C. elegans, which appears to be an excellent model to study hormone signaling pathways that are conserved between Ecdysozoa (insects and nematodes) and vertebrates. The present book focuses on two ancient hormone signaling systems: that of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), regulating reproduction in vertebrates, and the neuromedin U (NMU) signaling pathway. We used a combination of bioinformatics and reverse pharmacology to characterize the C. elegans equivalents of these systems. Functional analysis has been performed by means of RNA intereference and localization experiments by whole mount immunostaining. Using C. elegans, the complete picture of the molecular mechanism of GnRH and NMU signaling can now be further unraveled at the organismal level, and this in a high-throughput way.