Glen Wheeler, Takahiro Ishikawa ... Nicholas Smirnoff
Genomic evidence suggests that L-gulonolactone oxidase-the terminal enzyme in vitamin C synthesis, which has been repeatedly lost throughout animal evolution-was lost in plants and other photosynthetic eukaryotes following plastid acquisition.
Studies of the house mouse Mus musculus have provided important insights into mammalian biology, and efforts to study wild house mice and to create new inbred strains from wild populations have the potential to increase its usefulness as a model system.
The discovery of the earliest direct evidence of brood care in insects demonstrates a remarkably conserved egg-brooding reproductive strategy within scale insects in stasis for nearly 100 million years.
To leverage the tools, resources and knowledge that exist for C. elegans so that we can study ecology, evolution and other aspects of biology, we need to understand the natural history of this important model organism.
The zebrafish is a premier model organism for biomedical research, with a rich array of tools and genomic resources, and combining these with a fuller appreciation of wild zebrafish ecology could greatly extend its utility in biological research.
A better understanding of the natural history of model organisms will increase their value as model systems and also keep them at the forefront of research.
Drosophila has almost all transcription factor binding specificities available to humans; and human transcription factors with divergent specificities operate in cell types that are not found in fruit flies.
