Worm offers clues to development of human musculoskeletal system

The little round worm, better known in the scientific community as C. elegans, can be found just about everywhere.

The ones being studied in Dr. William Mohler's genetics and developmental biology lab came from a garden in Bristol, England, but they could just as easily have been unearthed from a lawn in Farmington.

Unlike the typical earth worm, the round worm is very hard to spot. It is only one millimeter long when fully grown and it is transparent - it has no pigment. That's what makes it so desirable.

"That means we can do studies of the inner workings, the anatomy, and the behavior of cells without dissecting it," says Mohler, an associate professor of genetics and developmental biology at the Health Center who has been studying cell fusion in C. elegans for 10 years.

"We can watch all the essential processes of life in these worms without killing them or opening them up."

While many scientists are using C. elegans for research into the genetics of aging and other developmental processes,

Mohler and his team are specifically studying giant cells in the skin.

Understanding the mechanisms by which cells fuse during a worm's development can provide important clues about the formation of human skeletal muscle and the causes of degenerative muscle diseases.

"The process of cell membrane fusion is essential to the development of virtually every animal species, allowing fertilization and the growth of bone, muscle, and placental tissue," says Mohler.

"Yet the mechanism by which fusing cells recognize each other and merge their membranes is poorly understood."

Another reason C. elegans is such a valuable research tool is that its life span is extremely short - only two and a half weeks. A newly hatched worm can become a mother in just three days.

One worm may produce a brood of about 200 offspring, and you can get two generations within a week or two. So putting together family trees - the staple of genetic research - is a cinch.

Even though each C. elegans only has 959 cells, that conglomeration of cells include an entire working nervous system, which helps the worms forage for food, find a mate, and avoid noxious chemicals and other dangerous contacts that could harm them.