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Pristionchus pacificus: an appropriate fondness for beetles

Nature Genetics volume 40, pages 1146–1147 (2008)Cite this article

The nematode Pristionchus pacificus associates with one particular beetle and eats its rotting corpse. The report of the genome sequence of P. pacificus, the fifth nematode to be sequenced and a useful secondary nematode genetic model system, highlights genes that may have influenced the route to parasitism.

J.B.S. Haldane saw the divine in the diversity of beetle species. Nematodes (roundworms), however, greatly outnumber beetles, comprising about a million species, including many parasites of humans, livestock and plants. One nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, is a laboratory model for a wide range of biological processes including signal transduction and longevity, and it was one of the first animals to have its complete genome sequenced1. Although C. elegans has proven invaluable for studies of human genes and pathways, it has had far less of an impact on research of parasitic nematodes. Now, Ralf J. Sommer and colleagues2 report a draft genome sequence of the nematode Pristionchus pacificus, which might help bridge the gap between the model C. elegans and the diversity of nematode species.

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Figure 1: The worm, the beetle, the consequence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jagan Srinivasan and Paul W. Sternberg are in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Biology Division, California Institute of Technology, 156-29 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. jsrini@caltech.edu pws@caltech.edu,

    Jagan Srinivasan & Paul W Sternberg

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  1. Jagan Srinivasan
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  2. Paul W Sternberg
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Srinivasan, J., Sternberg, P. Pristionchus pacificus: an appropriate fondness for beetles. Nat Genet 40, 1146–1147 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1008-1146

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