Blaxter M (2011) PLoS Biol "Nematodes: the worm and its relatives."

Blaxter M

[PLoS Biol, 2011]

Blaxter M (2010) Science "Genetics. Revealing the dark matter of the genome."

Blaxter M

[Science, 2010]

Blaxter M (2014) Curr Biol "Development: the maternal-zygotic transition revisited."

Blaxter M

[Curr Biol, 2014]

The handover from maternal to zygotic control has to be carefully orchestrated. In most animal embryos, maternal products drive early embryogenesis, and the genome of the zygote is only switched on later. However, in the nematode Ascaris the zygotic genome is never silent, and the maternal products are rapidly eliminated.

Blaxter M et al. (2012) BMC Biol "The worm in the world and the world in the worm."

Denver DR, Blaxter M

[BMC Biol, 2012]

Caenorhabditis elegans is a preeminent model organism, but the natural ecology of this nematode has been elusive. A four-year survey of French orchards published in BMC Biology reveals thriving populations of C. elegans (and Caenorhabditis briggsae) in rotting fruit and plant stems. Rather than being simply a 'soil nematode', C. elegans appears to be a 'plant-rot nematode'. These studies signal a growing interest in the integrated genomics and ecology of these tractable animals.

Blaxter M (2003) Nature "Comparative genomics: two worms are better than one."

Blaxter M

[Nature, 2003]

The genome of the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis briggsae has been sequenced, and show some remarkable differences from the genome of the better known - and physically similar - C. elegans.

Blaxter M et al. (1999) Parasitology "Parasitic helminth genomics. Filarial Genome Project."

Blaxter M, Daub J, Aslett M, Guiliano DB

[Parasitology, 1999]

The initiation of genome projects on helminths of medical importance promises to yield new drug targets and vaccine candidates in unprecedented numbers. In order to exploit this emerging data it is essential that the user community is aware of the scope and quality of data available, and that the genome projects provide analyses of the raw data to highlight potential genes of interest. Core bioinformatics support for the parasite genome projects has promoted these approaches. In the Brugia genome project, a combination of expressed sequence tag sequencing from multiple DNA libraries representing the complete filarial nematode lifecycle, and comparative analysis of the sequence dataset, particularly using the complete genome sequence of the model nematode C. elegans, has proved very effective in gene discovery.

Aboobaker A et al. (2010) Adv Exp Med Biol "The nematode story: Hox gene loss and rapid evolution."

Blaxter M, Aboobaker A

[Adv Exp Med Biol, 2010]

The loss in some taxa of conserved developmental control genes that are present in the vast majority of animal lineages is an understudied phenomenon. It is likely that in those lineages in which loss has occurred it may be a strong signal of the mode, tempo and direction of developmental evolution and thus identify ways of generating morphological novelties. Intuitively we might expect these novelties to be particularly those associated with morphological simplifications. One striking example of this has occurred within the nematodes. It appears that over half the ancestral bilaterian Hox cluster has been lost from the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and its closest related species. Studying the Hox gene complement of nematodes across the phylum has shown that many, if not all these losses occurred within the phylum. Other nematode clades only distantly related to C. elegans have additional Hox genes orthologous to those present in the ancestral bilaterian but absent from the model nematode. In some of these cases rapid sequence evolution of the homeodomain itself obscures orthology assignment until comparison is made with sequences from multiple nematode clades with slower evolving Hox genes. Across the phylum the homeodomains of the Hox genes that are present are evolving very rapidly. In one particular case the genomic arrangement of two homeodomains suggests a mechanism for gene loss. Studying the function in nematodes of the Hox genes absent from C. elegans awaits further research and the establishment of new nematode models. However, what we do know about Hox gene functions suggests that the genetic circuits within which Hox genes act have changed significantly within C. elegans and its close relatives.

Parkinson J et al. (2003) Bioinformatics "SimiTri--visualizing similarity relationships for groups of sequences."

Blaxter M, Parkinson J

[Bioinformatics, 2003]

Fenn K et al. (2004) Mol Biochem Parasitol "Quantification of Wolbachia bacteria in Brugia malayi through the nematode lifecycle."

Fenn K, Blaxter M

[Mol Biochem Parasitol, 2004]

Aboobaker A et al. (2003) Curr Opin Genet Dev "Hox gene evolution in nematodes: novelty conserved."

Aboobaker A, Blaxter M

[Curr Opin Genet Dev, 2003]

The conserved homeobox (Hox) gene cluster is neither conserved nor clustered in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Instead, C. elegans has a reduced and dispersed gene complement that is the result the loss of Hox genes in stages throughout its evolutionary history. The roles of Hox genes in patterning the nematode body axis are also divergent, although there are tantalising remnants of ancient regulatory systems. Hox patterning also differs greatly between C. elegans and a second "model" nematode, Pristionchus pacificus. The pattern of Hox gene evolution may be indicative of the move to deterministic developmental modes in nematodes.