Aim of the Project

National Bioresource Project started in 2002 by the support of Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, Sports and Technology. The nematode C. elegans is among the organisms to be collected, stored and distributed. C. elegans is a good model organism suitable for research of life science. Genome and EST information have revealed almost all the genes on the chromosomes (Science 282, 2012-2018, 1998). The project was transferred to AMED (Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development) as of FY2016. The project is aimed to collect nematode bioresources available to researchers so that studies using the nematode are promoted. To this aim, research management committee advises the core facility (Tokyo Women’s Medical University School of Medicine) how to work for the community. Most of the efforts would be paid to collect, store and distribute deletion mutants of C. elegans. Others are for example to collect Cre recombinase transgenic and balancer strains useful for C. elegans experiments.

Usefulness of Deletion mutants for the research using C. elegans

It is fruitful to isolate deletion mutants of the genes of interest, by the aid of gene structure information. Genetical and biochemical analyses of deletion mutants of the nematode would elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the various phenomena in the multicellular systems. Describing the phenotypes of mutants would contribute to understand how the gene works in the nematode. Once the phenotypes have been described, mutants can be used for general genetics; researchers may screen for mutants that enhance or suppress the phenotype. By this way, researchers can get insights into the possible other members which work in the same genetic pathway. When, researchers wish to analyze mutants showing subtle phenotype, deletion mutants would help statistical analyses to see the difference between wild-type and mutant animals. Expression patterns and structural similarity should be informative to make double mutations to see the function of redundant genes.
Researchers can conduct transgenic rescue experiments, once mutant phenotypes have been described. Wild-type and mutant DNAs can be used to examine whether they are functional in vivo in the nematode and capable of rescuing the phenotypes. Functional transgenes with epitope tags may help to understand interaction among molecules in the mutant background. Transgenes with a domain swapped with others may reveal structure-function relationships of the molecule of interest. Extrachromosomal transgenes which rescue the mutant phenotypes would be useful for mosaic analyses, and eventually show where the product works.
Even if researchers cannot find any phenotypes, perhaps, biochemical analyses detecting the changes in protein expression by two-dimensional gel electropheoresis, or changes in RNA expression by transcriptome analyses, may suggest the function of the molecule. Efforts by the researchers are expected to result in the further informative experiments in the future. Some examples are described in Mitani, Proc. Jpn Acad Ser B Phys Biol Sci 2017; 93(8):561-577.

Research Management Committee

To optimize the project to work for the community, research management committee has been organized from Japanese C. elegans researchers. The committee advises the core facility in various aspects. Followings are the member as of April, 2022.

KAGE-NAKADAI Eriko	(School of Human Life and Ecology, Osaka Metropolitan University)
KIMURA Kotaro	(Department of Biology and Integrated Sciences, Nagoya City University)
MITANI Shohei	(Representative, School of Medicine, Tokyo Women’s Medical University)
NAKAMURA Taro	(Graduate School of Science, Osaka Metropolitan University)
SAITO Kuniaki	(Invertebrate Genetics Laboratory, National Institute of Genetics)
SATO Miyuki	(Institute for Molecular and Cellular Regulation, Gunma University)
SAWA Hitoshi	(Multicellular Organization Laboratory, National Institute of Genetics)
SUGIMOTO Asako	(Chairperson, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University)
TAKEISHI Asuka	(RIKEN Hakubi Team, RIKEN)

Address of the Core Facility

When researchers wish to receive strains from the project, please send a form of MTA (Material Transfer Agreement) to the following address:

How to Receive Isolated Mutants

• Mutants are available to researchers world-wide. Because we handle so many mutants that we will not advise the mutant recipients how to analyze each mutant. Please consider carefully the aim and methods of the experiments by yourselves before requesting the strains.
• Strains are at present restricted for academic use only. Also, it should be noted that the mutants should not be used for patent application. If researchers who wish to apply for patent using the strains, they should agree with the University corporation on the contract. Please send a letter to the core facility to inform that.
• Please pay the handling and shipping fee with a credit card before receiving the strains.

Call for the Feedback

• Please append the paper information when researchers have published a paper via the website rrc.nbrp.jp.
• If you are aware of any problem about mutants from this project, please let us know. The helpful information includes mistakes about deletion sites, rearrangement of the target gene, changes in the annotation of the gene. These will affect analysis using the strain and be informative for the community.