Journal article
Pathway-Specific Canalization and Plasticity of Gene Expression during C. elegans Dauer Development
iScience, Vol.29(4), 115058
04/2026
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.115058
PMCID: PMC13014971
PMID: 41890963
Abstract
How robustness and plasticity—mechanisms that restrain or promote variation— interact to generate faithful developmental outcomes remains unclear. Caenorhabditis elegans development, where different environmental or genetic stimuli can each induce larvae to switch from continuous growth to a seemingly identical dauer (dormancy) state, provides a tractable model to explore this question. To identify dauer features that differ or are invariant, we compared gene expression of seven dauers induced by different dauer-inducing conditions, globally and within >100 sets of curated covarying genes or “modules” enriched for functional features such as ‘protein expression’, mitochondria’, ‘germline’, etc., through gene co-expression network analyses. We found that most modules varied between dauers. Yet, a subset of modules associated with dormancy—DNA repair, cell cycle, and cell division— were invariant. We propose that the robust expression of genes regulating a few core traits governing dormancy accommodates variation in others, supporting the dauer’s adaptability and resilience.
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•Analysis of >100 co-varying gene sets (traits) in seven different C.elegans dauers•Transcriptomes and traits differ depending on the dauer-inducing stimulus•Traits were less conserved among environmentally-induced wild-type dauers•Cell cycle and DNA repair gene expression conserved; Cytochrome P450 most variable.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Pathway-Specific Canalization and Plasticity of Gene Expression during C. elegans Dauer Development
- Creators
- Johnny Cruz Corchado - Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer CenterKavinila Selvarasu - Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer CenterVeena Prahlad - Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- iScience, Vol.29(4), 115058
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.isci.2026.115058
- PMID
- 41890963
- PMCID
- PMC13014971
- NLM abbreviation
- iScience
- ISSN
- 2589-0042
- eISSN
- 2589-0042
- Publisher
- Elsevier Inc
- Grant note
- NIH Infrastructure Programs: P40 OD010440 National Cancer Institute (NCI)
We thank Bin He (University of Iowa) for extremely valuable discussions, particularly on RNA-seq data transformation for PCA and differential gene expression (DGE) analysis, devising average PCC metrics among datasets, and helping us understand how to navigate complex datasets. We thank the V.P. laboratory and Dr. Gidalevitz (Drexel University) for their comments. We thank Abhishiktha Godthi for RNA extraction. We thank the reviewers for their helpful comments, which significantly strengthened the manuscript. Nematode strains were provided by the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center (CGC) (funded by the NIH Infrastructure Programs P40 OD010440). This work was supported by R01 MH126282 (V.P.) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant P30CA016056, involving the use of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center's Pathology Network, Genomic, and Biomedical Research Informatics Shared Resources.
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 02/17/2026
- Date published
- 04/2026
- Academic Unit
- Biology
- Record Identifier
- 9985139485802771
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