Roundworms

International Pooper Scooper Week - April 1-7

... A number of common parasites, including roundworm, are transmitted via dog feces. When infected dog droppings are left on the ground, the eggs of the roundworms and other parasites can linger in the soil for years. As a result, anyone who comes in contact with the soil also comes in contact with the infected e...

New devices to boost nematode research on neurons and drugs

...g micron-scale channels and pillars that mimic real soil particles. The newly reported devices provide a near natural environment for soil-dwelling roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans, or C. elegans) that measure barely a millimeter in length. The nematodes move normally, but slightly compressed so that highl...

Sensible Diet, Exercise and Weight Control Increases Longevity

...researchers have already shown that reducing the activity of the pathway in roundworms and fruitflies extends lifespan. Because reducing insulin-like signalling in the neurons of roundworms and fruitflies extends their lifespan, the researchers decided to examine w...

Life Expectancy Increased by Eating Less

... human lives. Now researchers, led by Andrew Dillin at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, identified a gene in roundworms that directly links calorie restriction to a longer lifespan. The research team found that the gene called 'pha-4' plays a role in gut develo...

Aging Critical For Alzheimer's Disease

... a streamlined organism that, like mammals, uses the insulin/IGF-1 pathway to control lifespan but can be rapidly manipulated genetically. Dillin used roundworms that produce human beta amyloid peptide in body wall muscles. As the worms aged, the protein formed toxic aggregates causing paralysis. Then res...

Roundworms in Medical Technology

Mosquito Season Approaching: American Heartworm Society Reminds Pet Owners of Risk

...other reason to use year-round prevention is that many heartworm preventives also have activity against other intestinal and common parasites, such as roundworms and fleas. Options for preventing heartworm infection in both dogs and cats include daily and monthly tablets and chewables as well as monthly topic...

Roundworms in Medical Dictionary

Roundworms

The " roundworms " or "nematodes" are the most diverse phylum of pseudocoelomates, and one of the most diverse of all animals. Nematode species are very difficult to distinguish; over 80,000 have been described, of which over... Roundworm infection can have numerous nega...

Aging

...ing (NIH) ... Alex Comfort - studied and popularized the biology of aging , while promoting life extension ... David Gems - works on aging in roundworms at University College London ... Advocates more medical research into aging , stimulates training and provides information on aging -related di...

Roundworms in Biological News

New regulatory mechanism discovered for cell identify and behavior in forming organs

... processes in adult animals. Parts of the Wnt pathway have been conserved between species during the long course of evolution, all the way from simple roundworms to humans. Previous research in Xenopus has established that a low level of activity from a molecule called B-catenin which promotes cell-to-cell ...

Deprived of a sense of smell, worms live longer

... have shown that they can extend the life spans of roundworms even when the worms are well fed it just takes a ...ornfeld, professor of developmental biology. "Like roundworms that are grown in a food-scarce environment, the w...controlling their metabolism and life span." If roundworms sense that food is abundant, their metabolism adju...

Worm genome offers clues to evolution of parasitism

...nusual ecological niche: it lives together with oriental beetles in the United States and Japan in order to devour the bacteria, fungi and other small roundworms that grow on beetle carcasses after they have died. While the beetles are alive and the nematodes' food source is scarce, the worms live in a "resting...

NIH extends commitment to transformative research with 2008 Pioneer, New Innovator Awards

...D., Salk Institute for Biological Studies assistant professor of chemical biology and proteomics, who will design and incorporate novel amino acids in roundworms to study how a class of proteins transmits signals regulating development and cancer. Joseph C. Wu, M.D., Ph.D., Stanford University School of Med...

Consortium develops new method enabling routine targeted gene modification

...ny types of cells. "Recent work has shown that ZFNs can alter genes with high efficiency in cells from plants or model organisms like fruitflies, roundworms and zebrafish, and in human cells," says J. Keith Joung, MD, PhD, of the MGH Molecular Pathology Unit, the paper's senior author. "However, a signifi...

Eliminating germline lengthens fly lifespan, Brown study shows

...s ago by acclaimed aging biologist Cynthia Kenyon at the University of California, San Francisco. Kenyon found that eliminating germline stem cells in roundworms extended their lifespan. We wanted to see if Kenyons findings could be duplicated in the fly, said Marc Tatar, the senior scientist on the project ...

Poor Americans in the United States suffer hidden burden of parasitic and other neglected diseases

...ected diseases above, significant numbers of American schoolchildren living in poor areas may also be infected with other parasites, including Ascaris roundworms in the South, Strongyloides threadworms in Appalachia, Leishmania protozoan parasites in Texas, and the bacteria that cause leptospirosis. "That re...

US-French research team to barcode an entire ecosystem

... principal investigator on the grant. "A model ecosystem approach to ecology will benefit conservation much like model organisms - from fruit flies to roundworms - in molecular biology have benefited medicine. There is a great deal of insight researchers can obtain about very complex systems by first studying s...

Bird sex is something else

... In mammals, mismatched doses of X genes between males and females threaten to upset the gene network in one or both sexes. Fruit flies (Drosophila), roundworms (C. elegans) and humans each work around this dosage problem using different molecular pathways. By contrast, for birds it appears that most genes on ...

Common molecular 'signature' identified in solid tumors

... compared to their cousins, messenger RNA, which can be several hundred to a thousand times that long. But several years ago, researchers studying roundworms noted that properly functioning miRNA was necessary for normal development. Since then, scientists in laboratories around the world have identified hu...

Roundworms in Biological Technology

Proteomics Study Reveals That Genes Involved in Invertebrate Longevity Have Surprising Parallels in Humans.

...e expression between young and old humans. Though the existence of longevity-extending genes has been known for experimental organisms such as yeast, roundworms and flies, this is the first demonstration that similar genes have a role in the aging process of humans. The proteins involved are defined as ...

UW-Madison scientists find a key to cell division

...g embryo. If a defect occurred, it would mean that the inactivated protein is essential for normal development. "We used nematodes, which are small roundworms that are cheaper and quicker to use than mammalian cells, to assess gene function," Skop says. "All but two of the proteins from the mammalian cells w...

Roundworms in Biological Definition

Fungus

...fungi that parasitize plants grow haustoria that pierce the plant cells and digest substances on the inside; some soil-dwelling fungi actually trap roundworms and other small animals. Most chytrids, which are generally considered the most primitive group of fungi, do not form hyphae and instead grow direc...

Roundworms in Biological Dictionary

Glycolipid

...ng of glycolipid transfer protein. J. Mol. ... A team led by biologists at the University of California, San Diego has discovered a molecule in roundworms that ... is a glycolipid —a lipid attached ... In vivo identification of glycolipid antigen-specific T cells using ... A synthetic glycolip...

Glial cells

...rocytes are ... It was generally considered that glial cells or astrocytes provide support and ... Rockefeller University researchers show that roundworms are the perfect model system to study the function of glial cells in the nervous system, because these cells ... Glial cells were discove...

Ascaris

...vering the systematics, external and internal anatomy and life cycle of this worm. Ascaris ( ′askərəs ) ( invertebrate zoology ) A genus of roundworms that are intestinal parasites in mammals, including ... Why ascaris have simple digestive ... Ascaris lumbricoides Ascaris lumbricoides An ...