C. elegans

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. An Overview of C. elegans Biology

   • Kevin Strange

   Pages 1-11

3. Comparative Genomics in C. elegans, C. briggsae, and Other Caenorhabditis Species

   • Avril Coghlan, Jason E. Stajich, Todd W. Harris

   Pages 13-29

4. WormBase

   • Todd W. Harris, Lincoln D. Stein

   Pages 31-50

5. C. elegans Deletion Mutant Screening

   • Robert J. Barstead, Donald G. Moerman

   Pages 51-58

6. Insertional Mutagenesis in C. elegans Using the Drosophila Transposon Mos1

   • Jean-Louis Bessereau

   Pages 59-73

7. Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism Mapping

   • M. Wayne Davis, Marc Hammarlund

   Pages 75-92

8. Creation of Transgenic Lines Using Microparticle Bombardment Methods

   • Vida Praitis

   Pages 93-107

9. Construction of Plasmids for RNA Interference and In Vitro Transcription of Double-Stranded RNA

   • Lisa Timmons

   Pages 109-117

10. Delivery Methods for RNA Interference in C. elegans

    • Lisa Timmons

    Pages 119-125

11. Functional Genomic Approaches in C. elegans

    • Todd Lamitina

    Pages 127-138

12. Assays for Toxicity Studies in C. elegans With Bt Crystal Proteins

    • Larry J. Bischof, Danielle L. Huffman, Raffi V. Aroian

    Pages 139-154

13. Fluorescent Reporter Methods

    • Harald Hutter

    Pages 155-173

14. Electrophysiological Analysis of Neuronal and Muscle Function in C. elegans

    • Michael M. Francis, Andres Villu Maricq

    Pages 175-192

15. Sperm and Oocyte Isolation Methods for Biochemical and Proteomic Analysis

    • Michael A. Miller

    Pages 193-201

16. Preservation of C. elegans Tissue Via High-Pressure Freezing and Freeze-Substitution for Ultrastructural Analysis and Immunocytochemistry

    • Robby M. Weimer

    Pages 203-221

17. Intracellular pH Measurements In Vivo Using Green Fluorescent Protein Variants

    • Keith Nehrke

    Pages 223-239

18. Automated Imaging of C. elegans Behavior

    • Christopher J. Cronin, Zhaoyang Feng, William R. Schafer

    Pages 241-251

19. Intracellular Ca²⁺ Imaging in C. elegans

    • Rex A. Kerr, William R. Schafer

    Pages 253-264

20. In Vitro Culture of C. elegans Somatic Cells

    • Kevin Strange, Rebecca Morrison

    Pages 265-273

Molecular biology has driven a powerful reductionist, or “molecule-c- tric,” approach to biological research in the last half of the 20th century. Red- tionism is the attempt to explain complex phenomena by defining the functional properties of the individual components of the system. Bloom (1) has referred to the post-genome sequencing era as the end of “naïve reductionism. ” Red- tionist methods will continue to be an essential element of all biological research efforts, but “naïve reductionism,” the belief that reductionism alone can lead to a complete understanding of living organisms, is not tenable. Organisms are clearly much more than the sum of their parts, and the behavior of complex physiological processes cannot be understood simply by knowing how the parts work in isolation. Systems biology has emerged in the wake of genome sequencing as the s- cessor to reductionism (2–5). The “systems” of systems biology are defined over a wide span of complexity ranging from two macromolecules that interact to carry out a specific task to whole organisms. Systems biology is integrative and seeks to understand and predict the behavior or “emergent” properties of complex, multicomponent biological processes. A systems-level characteri- tion of a biological process addresses the following three main questions: (1) What are the parts of the system (i. e.

• SNP
• microscopy
• molecular biology
• mutant
• transcription

• Department of Anesthesiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville

  Kevin Strange

• Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville

  Kevin Strange

• Department of Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville

  Kevin Strange

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