WOrM Podcast: Whole Organism Analytics Podcast20 Aug 2025

EPISODE 25: Heavy Worms, Light Data – Proteomics Gets Personal in C. elegans

In this episode, we dive into a milestone in C. elegans systems biology — the first application of SILAC-style metabolic proteome labelling in a whole animal. By feeding worms lysine auxotroph E. coli labelled with heavy lysine (Lys8), researchers enabled quantitative proteomics with precision typically reserved for cell culture.

But it gets better — they made it RNAi compatible, allowing side-by-side comparisons of wild-type vs mutant proteomes in the same run.

We discuss:

How worms were labelled with heavy lysine using auxotrophic E. coli
How this enabled 94–97% incorporation of label in just one generation
The creation of RNAi-ready NJF01 bacteria for knockdown and labelling
Case study: NHR-49 loss alters lipid metabolism proteins at scale
Why this approach paves the way for whole-organism proteogenomics

📖 Based on the research article:

“Quantitative proteomics by amino acid labeling in C. elegans”

Fredens, J., Engholm-Keller, K., Giessing, A., Pultz, D., Larsen, M.R., Højrup, P., Møller-Jensen, J., & Færgeman, N.J.

Published in Nature Methods (2011)

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1675

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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...

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EPISODE 52: Worms in Space: Microbiomes in a Capsule

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29 Jul 21min

EPISODE 51: The Worm Behind the Wild

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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

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6 Mai 14min

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

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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