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SO ENDS this two weekend fragment from nature on modular language by a type of worm that appears to have syntax rules and significant complexity. It seems that whenever we assume that a creature is simple, time reverses that conclusion, proving perhaps it is us who are simple. We only invented the printing press (in the west) in the fourteenth century; these creatures have been printing words for millennia. View in LinkedIn

THE WORDS. “The term ascaroside was first created to describe a novel lipid detected in the intestinal parasite Ascaris lumbricoides over 100 years ago. These lipophilic molecules, containing long aliphatic side chains, formed a layer around Ascaris eggs to protect against harsh environmental conditions. More recently, a larger collection of more hydrophilic ascarosides has been identified in C. elegans and other related nematodes and has been shown to regulate a multitude of behaviors and aspects of the life history of the worm including development, mate attraction, aggregation, and repulsion.” https://lnkd.in/dGAHbZv View in LinkedIn

POSSIBLY WIDESPREAD. “Highly complex modular ascaroside assemblies are not restricted to C. elegans and have also been characterized in the necromenic Pristionchus pacificus that is associated with scarab beetles. While the general building blocks utilized by C. elegans and P. pacificus are somewhat similar, the resulting modular assemblies are highly species-specific.” https://lnkd.in/d4DhYhz View in LinkedIn

WORD CONTEXTS. “Overlapping mixtures of these pheromones affect the development of the worm and a variety of different behaviors.” https://lnkd.in/dXsN6Pj View in LinkedIn

MANY DECORATIONS. “The ascaroside core structures originating from peroxisomal β-oxidation serve as scaffolds for the highly species-specific attachment of additional building blocks originating from diverse primary metabolic pathways, including fatty acid, citric acid, amino acid, carbohydrate, and nucleoside metabolism, to generate highly complex modular assemblies.” https://lnkd.in/d4DhYhz View in LinkedIn

CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATIONS. “Downstream of the canonical β-oxidation cycle the basic ascarosides can undergo various species-specific modifications, thus giving rise to a large diversity of unique signaling molecules that represent the chemical language of nematodes.” https://lnkd.in/d4DhYhz View in LinkedIn

UNKNOWN “Ascarosides comprise a family of small signaling molecules that have been shown to regulate important events and behaviors in the life history of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Although the different roles of individual ascarosides appear to be determined by the variances in chemical structure, the mechanisms by which ascarosides are synthesized as well as the locations in which ascarosides are produced within the worm are largely unknown.” https://lnkd.in/dGAHbZv View in LinkedIn

BIOSYNTHETIC HUB. “We further show that mutants lacking lysosome‐related organelles are defective in the production of all 4′‐modified ascarosides, thus identifying the waste disposal system of the cell as a hotspot for ascaroside biosynthesis.” https://lnkd.in/dHBmzX9 View in LinkedIn

THE HOW IS MISSING. ““The mechanisms that underlie the highly specific assembly of ascarosides are not understood. We show that the acyl‐CoA synthetase ACS‐7, which localizes to lysosome‐related organelles, is specifically required for the attachment of different building blocks to the 4′‐position of ascr#9.” https://lnkd.in/dHBmzX9 View in LinkedIn

BASIC BUILDING BLOCK. “In the ascarosides, the dideoxysugar ascarylose serves as a scaffold to which diverse moieties from lipid, amino acid, neurotransmitter, and nucleoside metabolism are attached” https://lnkd.in/dHBmzX9 View in LinkedIn