秀丽线虫,模型动物 z-bo 2020-07-28 894

　　1 Research history of Caenorhabditis elegans

　　Caenorhabditis elegans (Caenorhabditis elegans) plays a vital role in today's life science research. After establishing the core principles of molecular genetics in the 1960s, Brenner finally chose Caenorhabditis elegans (a simpler animal than fruit flies) to explore the genetic mechanisms of individual and neurodevelopment. He also published an article on genetics in 1974. In this article, C. We have elaborated on the selection of nematode mutants, gene mapping and other genetic manipulation methods (Brenner S.1974). It laid the foundation for the genetic research on the ontogeny of nematodes as a model animal.

　　Special benefits of nematodes C. Nematodes are male and female under natural conditions and can lay about 300 fertilized eggs and grow rapidly in their lifetime. At the same time, under natural or induced conditions, male individuals can be produced for hybridization experiments. This feature gives C. elegans an unparalleled advantage in genetic research. In addition, C. Among all 1090 cells in the nematode, 131 cells disappeared at a fixed time and location in a fixed manner. The specific number of C. elegans cells and fixed cell apoptosis are the main reasons for determining the status of C. elegans in apoptosis studies (QinFS, 2006).

　　3 main research areas of nematodes

　　3.1 Cell Biology

　　In the life of Caenorhabditis elegans, 12% of the cells disappear through apoptosis, and 80% of the cells appear during embryonic development. Now, studies on mutant individuals have shown that apoptosis genes constitute a linear regulatory pathway for genetic regulation of cell apoptosis (Horvitz HR. 2002). By constructing double deletion mutants between these genes or conducting transgene analysis, it is found that their gene regulation pathway is: egl-1→ced-9→ced-4→ced-3, among which ced-9 and ced-3 gene products They correspond to the classes of enzymes that perform mammalian apoptosis inhibitors Bcl-2 and apoptosis caspase.

　　3.2 NAi and its mechanism of action RNAi and its genetic mechanism are another major contribution of nematodes to the development of modern life sciences. The discovery of NAi began 30 years after antisense RNA could block the translation of endogenous mRNA (FireA, 1998). The discovery of NAi and miRNA provides a potential new approach for disease treatment.