Caltech researchers find dual-use sexual attraction and population-control chemicals in...(led ascarosides. The chemicals looked su...)

"When worm larvae are stressed out and hungry and crowded," Sternberg says, "they enter the dauer stage." In this alternate state, the worm larvae can withstand harsh environmental conditions. "The dauer stage is important because it is the infective stage in a lot of parasitic nematodes," he says.

The scientists found that purified samples of the chemicals, dubbed ascr#2, ascr#3, and ascr#4, induced sexual excitement among males, but only when the chemicals were combined, and only when presented to the worms in very dilute form. At higher concentrations, 100 to 1000 times stronger, males were repelled, sexual reproduction ceased, and existing worm larvae entered their hibernating stage.

"This is the first glimpse into the chemical code that nematodes are using to communicate," says Sternberg. Adds Srinivasan, "It is the first time that two distinct and different life history traits--reproduction and developmental arrest--have been found to be regulated by the same family of molecules, suggesting a link, which we had not suspected, between the corresponding pathways."

The discovery offers hope for a solution to a global nematode scourge. Hundreds of thousands of nematode species occupy the earth, and many are pests or parasites whose activities cause disease or economic hardship, with damage amounting to billions of dollars per year. For example, hookworm, a parasitic nematode that lives in the small intestine of humans, is believed to infect one billion people worldwide and in developing countries is the leading cause of illnesses in babies, children, pregnant women, and malnourished individuals; the soybean cyst nematode,
'/>"/>