WOrM Podcast: Whole Organism Analytics Podcast11 Jun 2025

EPISODE 17: Oxygen High – Worms Breathe, Signal, and Adapt with cGMP Precision

In this episode, we explore how Caenorhabditis elegans senses and responds to oxygen — not just by breathing, but by activating a finely tuned cGMP signalling network in real time.

Using genetically encoded biosensors, researchers reveal how rising oxygen levels trigger tonic cGMP and Ca²⁺ responses in O₂-sensing neurons like PQR, and how a web of feedback loops controls these signals to shape behaviour.

We unpack:

The role of soluble guanylate cyclases in detecting O₂
How PDE-1 and PDE-2 form a push-pull system to shape cGMP signals
Surprising individual variability in cGMP responses — even in identical worms
Evidence for cGMP nanodomains and subcellular signal compartmentalisation
How these pathways help worms make behavioural decisions in fluctuating oxygen

📖 Based on the research article:

“In vivo genetic dissection of O₂-evoked cGMP dynamics in a Caenorhabditis elegans gas sensor”

Africa Couto, Shigekazu Oda, Viacheslav O. Nikolaev, Zoltan Soltesz & Mario de Bono

Published in PNAS (2013)

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1217428110

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This podcast is generated with artificial intelligence and curated by Veeren. If you’d like your publication featured on the show, please get in touch.

📩 More info:

🔗 ⁠⁠www.veerenchauhan.com⁠⁠

📧 veeren.chauhan@nottingham.ac.uk

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Episoder(53)

EPISODE 53: Worms on Pause

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱⏸️Today, we are talking about worms that appear to stop living—without dying.Researchers have identified a new, reversible state of suspended animatio...

5 Aug 26min

EPISODE 52: Worms in Space: Microbiomes in a Capsule

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱🚀Today, we are looking at NemaCapsules: a new microfluidic system designed to study how host genetics and the gut microbiome influence C. elegans hea...

29 Jul 21min

EPISODE 51: The Worm Behind the Wild

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re looking at a review with a bold idea.Can a tiny nematode help us protect fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects from an increasingly chall...

22 Jul 16min

EPISODE 50: Fed by Mum, Built by Ribosomes

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re talking about inheritance.Not DNA.Not small RNAs.Not epigenetics.But ribosomes.⸻🧬 The central ideaWhen mother worms experience dietary re...

15 Jul 20min

EPISODE 49: Glowing up the Worm Proteome

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re looking at a paper that doesn’t answer a biological question.Instead, it builds the tools to answer thousands of biological questions in t...

8 Jul 21min

EPISODE 48: Murder Mode: How a Worm Evolved the Urge to Kill

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we're talking about a worm with teeth.And a nervous system that has been rewired — by evolution — to become aggressive.⸻🧬 The central ideaPrist...

6 Mai 14min

EPISODE 47: When Bacteria Fight Back: Bioplastic Kills the Worm

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re talking about something unexpected.A bioplastic — something we usually think of as sustainable, useful, even beneficial —can kill a worm.⸻...

29 Apr 21min

EPISODE 46: Turning in Time: Neural Sequences in the Worm Brain

Welcome to the next episode of the WOrM Podcast 🪱Today we’re looking at something deceptively simple: a turn.But not just that a worm turns —how the brain decides to do it.⸻🧬 The central ideaTurning...

22 Apr 19min