How to Build a Cell
	All living things are composed of cells, and multicellular organisms have many different types of cells, each specialized to perform particular tasks. For example, brain cells are designed to process nerve signals, and cells of the immune system are geared to combat foreign infection. How do cells acquire such exquisitely specialized forms and functions? This is one of the main questions our laboratory is asking. We focus our attention on a single type of cell with remarkable form and function­the sperm cell of the soil nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans. Like all sperm cells, nematode sperm perform the critical function of finding and fusing with an oocyte to begin the process that creates a new individual. Nematode sperm, however, have a form that is strikingly different from that of most other sperm cells. Instead of swimming with a "tail" (flagellum), they crawl with a "foot" (pseudopod). Using a combination of genetic, biochemical, and molecular biological approaches, our lab is investigating the genes, proteins, and cellular processes necessary to build a C. elegans sperm cell.
how we do it | what we're learning   http://www.mcb.arizona.edu/wardlab/research.html All Contents Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved. Last Modified: July 17, 2001 Paul Muhlrad pmuhlrad@u.arizona.edu