I am new to this forum so don’t hesitate to give me some direction in my communications.
I did some work a few years ago where I very strongly postulated that the function of the alae is as a giant neural receptor. My results were statistically 99.9% positive. Unfortunately here in Australia there is not much support for this type of work so it goes untested.
I postulated the proteins involved and also the molecules that stimulate these proteins from various parasitic nematodes.
The information hasn’t been released yet but I contacted some prominent authors recently who were very interested but after receiving my research they now won’t reply. So it was either too interesting or to boring.
The function is particularly stark in the dauer stage where the nematode waits for the right conditions to exit this stage.
A nice piece of evidence would be if anyone working with dumpy has seen any irregularity with entering or exiting the dauer stage. Dumpy is usually the interruption to the alae formation so receptor function in this region may be damaged.
Since the alae is the largest nematode anatomical structure of unknown function, I thought that there should be some interest. If anyone is interested or knows of an avenue where there is interest in this field please let me know.
Also let me know how to present this as the information is genetic based and can be protracted also moving between diciplines.
Robert