Life‐History, Stress‐Resistance, and Transcriptomic Variation Among a Mexican Caenorhabditis elegans Isolate and Contemporary and Ancestral N2 Lineages
- 1Departamento de Biología Celular y Desarrollo, Instituto de Fisiología Celular (IFC) Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Ciudad de México México
- 2Centro de Investigación en Enfermedades Infecciosas (CIENI) Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias (INER) Mexico City México
Abstract
Long‐term laboratory propagation can be associated with phenotypic and transcriptional differences in model organisms, but comparisons with recently isolated strains and earlier laboratory lineages remain limited. Here, we compared a recently isolated Caenorhabditis elegans strain from Mexico City (VJV2) with the contemporary N2 Bristol strain. To contextualize laboratory propagation history, we also included the N2 Ancestral strain, a cryopreserved lineage from 1969 derived from early laboratory stocks. Phenotypic assays showed that, under standard laboratory conditions, the VJV2 strain exhibited reduced lifespan and fertility but increased survival following Pseudomonas aeruginosa exposure, whereas the Ancestral strain showed higher oxidative stress tolerance but reduced thermotolerance. RNA‐seq analyses showed that transcriptomic profiles of the VJV2 and Ancestral strains were more similar to each other than to the contemporary N2 Bristol strain, suggesting expression differences associated with strain history and laboratory propagation. Differential gene expression analyses identified strain‐specific expression patterns involving stress‐, immune‐, and collagen‐related genes. Under acute heat stress, only a small set of canonical heat shock genes was commonly upregulated across the three strains, whereas the VJV2, Ancestral, and contemporary N2 Bristol strains exhibited distinct strain‐specific expression patterns. Together, these findings provide a comparative phenotypic and transcriptomic characterization of three C. elegans strains with distinct laboratory histories and highlight the importance of strain background when interpreting experimental outcomes.
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BibTeX
@article{herschgonzalez2026lifehistory,
title = {{Life‐History, Stress‐Resistance, and Transcriptomic Variation Among a Mexican Caenorhabditis elegans Isolate and Contemporary and Ancestral N2 Lineages}},
author = {Jaqueline Hersch‐González and Nallely Cano‐Domínguez and Mariana Zurita‐León and Francisco Pinta‐Castro and Maribel Soto‐Nava and Santiago Avila‐Rios and Victor Julian Valdes},
journal = {Ecology and Evolution},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1002/ece3.74378},
url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.74378},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Life‐History, Stress‐Resistance, and Transcriptomic Variation Among a Mexican Caenorhabditis elegans Isolate and Contemporary and Ancestral N2 Lineages
AU - Jaqueline Hersch‐González
AU - Nallely Cano‐Domínguez
AU - Mariana Zurita‐León
AU - Francisco Pinta‐Castro
AU - Maribel Soto‐Nava
AU - Santiago Avila‐Rios
AU - Victor Julian Valdes
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
JO - Ecology and Evolution
DO - 10.1002/ece3.74378
UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.74378
AB - Long‐term laboratory propagation can be associated with phenotypic and transcriptional differences in model organisms, but comparisons with recently isolated strains and earlier laboratory lineages remain limited. Here, we compared a recently isolated Caenorhabditis elegans strain from Mexico City (VJV2) with the contemporary N2 Bristol strain. To contextualize laboratory propagation history, we also included the N2 Ancestral strain, a cryopreserved lineage from 1969 derived from early laboratory stocks. Phenotypic assays showed that, under standard laboratory conditions, the VJV2 strain exhibited reduced lifespan and fertility but increased survival following Pseudomonas aeruginosa exposure, whereas the Ancestral strain showed higher oxidative stress tolerance but reduced thermotolerance. RNA‐seq analyses showed that transcriptomic profiles of the VJV2 and Ancestral strains were more similar to each other than to the contemporary N2 Bristol strain, suggesting expression differences associated with strain history and laboratory propagation. Differential gene expression analyses identified strain‐specific expression patterns involving stress‐, immune‐, and collagen‐related genes. Under acute heat stress, only a small set of canonical heat shock genes was commonly upregulated across the three strains, whereas the VJV2, Ancestral, and contemporary N2 Bristol strains exhibited distinct strain‐specific expression patterns. Together, these findings provide a comparative phenotypic and transcriptomic characterization of three C. elegans strains with distinct laboratory histories and highlight the importance of strain background when interpreting experimental outcomes.
SN - 2045-7758
SN - 2045-7758
ER -