Intercellular Signaling and Signal Transduction in C. Elegans

Intercellular signaling and signal transduction underlie most aspects of development and behavior. To understand any specific case we must identify the ligands, receptors and transducers, as well as regulators that modulate the activity of the signaling pathway. To understand more general aspects of signaling, we have to address the questions: To what extent are there modular signaling pathways, i.e. pathways that act as coherent units? How many such pathways are there? What factors affect the action of a universal pathway in particular cases? How widely is a given component or pathway used? How are the effects of multiple signaling pathways integrated? Here I discuss the use of Caenorhabditis elegans molecular genetics to study problems of intercellular signaling and signal transduction.