News
New article: Natural allelic variation modifies acute ethanol response phenotypes in wild strains of C. elegans
Acute physiological reactions to ethanol are influenced by genetics and are risk indicators for developing alcohol use disorder. Classical animal knock-out studies may not identify genes in which natural genetic variation affects these responses in wild populations.
Due to conserved neurobiology and ethanol responses between mammals and invertebrates, we characterized ethanol response behaviors in genetically distinct wild and wild-derived Caenorhabditis elegans strains. We found considerable variation in ethanol responses, suggesting that these strains harbor allelic variation that modulates ethanol responses.