The Quest for the Holy Mutant

[Malene Hansen]

The Cold Spring Harbor Worm Course 2001 participants proudly present:

THE QUEST FOR THE HOLY MUTANT

Setting: Dark room, Wagner's Gotterdammerung is playing, suddenly the lights are turned on. Speaker introduces the key players of the play: Michael Hengartner, Andrew Chisholm, Erik Jorgensen, Rik Korswagen and Todd Harris. Key players leave the room except for Erik, who secretly carries an adorable picture of Camilla Martin (Camilla is a famous (very cute!) Danish badminton player, who Erik is secretly in love with) and is looking at it. Suddenly he is interrupted in his dream and a worm course student enters the room.

Student: So, professor Jorgensen, could you tell a novice like myself how to tell the difference between a male and a hermaphrodite worm?

Jorgensen: (still trying to hide his secret picture of Camilla), well, that's easy. (Two students enter the room, wearing helmets made of the crabs from the beach, one with a sharp edge and one without). Take a look at this. This one with the sharp edge is a hermaphrodite and the one without is a male, easy, just opposite from the real world? (Michael Hengartner enters the room, jumping around very eager to share his knowledge).

Hengartner: Erik and Andrew, I think it's time for the real stuff. The students should set up a real genetic cross, because remember YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO KEEP A MATING PLATE!!!!! (Student puts male and hermaphrodite together with a strange looking plumbing device and the worms start to mate). So, that wasn't too hard now was it? Now, let's go for lunch and this afternoon Andre Chisholm will tell you something about the phenotypes and how to distinguish them from wild type N2 Bristol (Players leave the room).

Chisholm: I heard you were great at mating, setting up a mating plate that is (said with a very British accent). Anyway, let's try something more complicated. I will show you some genetic markers we often use in the field and it's your task to separate them from wild type and to give them a name (show the healthy worm).

Student: This one looks quite normal, nothing wrong with it. I think this is a normal hermaphrodite, Bristol type that is.

Chisholm: Excellent, well done. How about this next one!!!!! (show Dpy worm).

Student: Easy, that's a dumpy worm.

Jorgensen: Very good.

Student: Can I ask a trivial question????

Jorgensen: Andrew, would you like to answer this one?

Chisholm: Oh yeah, those are the ones I like the best!!!

Jorgensen: Did you bring your mutant with you???

Student: Of course, I will get it out the 80 (Almost freezing students, one carrying the other on his shoulder, enter the room). So how do I set up a screen to look for genes involved in this pathway????

Jorgensen: So this is what we call a classical forward genetic screen. You take a population of Bristol N2 and you treat them with a mutagen. For instance the Pulling Hall's coffee. A powerful mutagen if you take a closer look at this year's students before and after drinking this stuff. Come on I'll show you!!! (Several students dressed as N2's enter the room and Chisholm starts to mutagenise them--suddenly one student climbs on another student's back and a Lon mutant appears from within the wild type population. Look there's your mutant, fantastic. Now comes the tricky part. How do you map this phenotype to a gene sequence?

Harris: LET'S USE WORMBASE!!!!

Student: I really don't have a clue.

Jorgensen: Ok for that we need to ask the advice from a scientist who has studied Lon phenotypes in a population where this mutant phenotype is quite common: HOLLAND! I give you Rik Korswagen.

Korswagen: The Dutch population has been LONG known for it's high frequency of mutants. Therefore we developed a fast way to clone the genes involved. You cross your Lon mutant with a strain that has been living in isolation for a long time. Oh, did I mention that the fact that this strain was from Hawaiiiiiii. (student dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, wearing sunglasses, holding several cocktails and two sexy women surrounding him, enters the room). So, you cross you mutant worm in to the background and after a few PCR steps you would know the location of your gene of interest.

Student: Ok, fine I have my mutation, let's party. I will just check my plates.

Jorgensen: UNBELIEVABLE, I check my phenotype every day (says, while watching at his crutch). Always balance your mutation and then FREEZE IT!!!!

Harris: LET'S USE WORMBASE!!! Well, if nobody will listen, I will just go and pour some more plates with my blue toe!!!!! (Leaves the room)

All supervisors together: Oh my GOD, we lost our mutant, will we ever meet again??????

Hengartner: Au revoir a Paris!!!!! Or let's meet at the worm meeting 200-x!!! So long!

Play writing by Jurgen Riedl, Holland

Key players played by:

Jorgensen: Morten Larsen, Denmark

Hengartner: Lionel Pintard, Schwitzerland

Chiosholm: Muneesh Tewari, USA

Korswagen: Jurgen Riedl, Holland

Harris: Karsten Strauss, Germany