In this episode, we dive into a milestone in C. elegans systems biology — the first application of SILAC-style metabolic proteome labelling in a whole animal. By feeding worms lysine auxotroph E. coli labelled with heavy lysine (Lys8), researchers enabled quantitative proteomics with precision typically reserved for cell culture.
But it gets better — they made it RNAi compatible, allowing side-by-side comparisons of wild-type vs mutant proteomes in the same run.
We discuss:
How worms were labelled with heavy lysine using auxotrophic E. coli
How this enabled 94–97% incorporation of label in just one generation
The creation of RNAi-ready NJF01 bacteria for knockdown and labelling
Case study: NHR-49 loss alters lipid metabolism proteins at scale
Why this approach paves the way for whole-organism proteogenomics
📖 Based on the research article:
“Quantitative proteomics by amino acid labeling in C. elegans”
Fredens, J., Engholm-Keller, K., Giessing, A., Pultz, D., Larsen, M.R., Højrup, P., Møller-Jensen, J., & Færgeman, N.J.
Published in Nature Methods (2011)
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1675
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