CAENORHABDITIS-ELEGANS AS A MODEL FOR PARASITIC NEMATODES

Caenorhabditis elegans has become a popular model system for genetic a nd molecular research, since it is easy to maintain and has a very fas t life-cycle. Its genome is small and a virtually complete physical ma p in the form of cosmids and YAC clones exists. Thus it was chosen as a model system by the Genome Project for sequencing, and it is expecte d that by 1998 the complete sequence (100 million bp) will be availabl e. The accumulated wealth of information about C. elegans should be a boon for nematode parasitologists, as many aspects of gene regulation and function can be studied in this simple model system. A large array of techniques is available to study many aspects of C. elegans biolog y. In combination with genome projects for parasitic nematodes, conser ved genes can be identified rapidly. We expect many new areas of ferti le research that will lead to new insights in helminth parasitology, w hich are based not only on the information gained from C. elegans per se, but also from its use as a heterologous system to study parasitic genes. (C) 1998 Australian Society for Parasitology. Published by Else vier Science Ltd.