Larval, adult and aged.
Time-defined chemical changes across development, life-history transitions or ageing series.
Early-stage resource
Validated chemistry for nematodes.
Explore the founding WormChem dataset: surface-associated chemistry in Caenorhabditis elegans and Pristionchus pacificus across life stage, genotype and control background.
Founding dataset live · early development version · feature-level annotations under curation
Under development
A curated resource for developmental nematode chemistry.
WormChem is an early-stage, openly accessible resource for validated nematode chemistry and metabolite datasets. It is designed to make chemistry easier to explore across species, life stage, ageing, genotype, experimental background and anatomical space.
WormChem does not replace source repositories; it provides a searchable, curated layer for comparing nematode chemical features across biological context. Datasets from any nematode species are welcome, including free-living, parasitic, entomopathogenic and comparative systems.
Wild type, mutants and models.
Validated chemistry from wild-type strains, mutants and experimentally defined backgrounds.
Chemical imaging.
Spatially resolved chemistry, anatomical chemical phenotyping and related imaging datasets.
Formula-window-derived putative chemical class labels were generated offline for negative ion mode using the extracted formula-window app algorithm, the published WormChem/JACS formula-class windows and <5 ppm mass tolerance. They are putative formula/class matches, not confirmed compound identities.
Founding dataset
WormChem Explorer.
Search and compare m/z features from the first WormChem development dataset. The current explorer shows feature-level patterns by species, life stage, genotype and control signal.
—m/z features in CSV
2nematode species
2genotypes
2life stages
3control classes
1. Choose species
Select C. elegans or P. pacificus.
2. Choose background
Compare wild type and daf-22 backgrounds.
3. Choose stage and chemistry
Select adult or larva, then filter by putative molecular class.
Explore animal-associated chemistry
Use any combination of species, background, life stage and chemistry filters. Chemistry filters also return ambiguous features where the selected class is one possible match.
| m/z | Ion intensity | Species | Background | Life stage | Putative chemistry | Empirical formula |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading feature summary… | ||||||
Select a feature
Click any table row to open a feature profile showing the strongest sample group, summary ratios and mean signal across nematode and control groups.
How to read this: high nematode vs control values suggest worm-associated signal; high control-linked signal may reflect agar, bacteria or substrate background.
Class distribution
Choose a condition
Clear classes excludes ambiguous and unassigned features. Ambiguous features match more than one elemental class window and are not double-counted across slices; + Unassigned adds features with no formula-space match.
Class distributions exclude any m/z feature with signal in ITO, E. coli or agar controls, then calculate the class distribution only from the remaining animal-associated features.
Dataset notes. The current explorer uses mean feature intensity across replicate groups. Features are shown as m/z-level chemical features, not confirmed compound identities unless annotation evidence is added. Control-linked features may reflect agar, bacteria or substrate background and should be interpreted carefully.
Putative chemistry. Formula-window-derived putative chemical class labels were generated offline for negative ion mode using the extracted formula-window app algorithm, the published WormChem/JACS formula-class windows and <5 ppm mass tolerance. They are putative formula/class matches, not confirmed compound identities.
Citation. Please cite the associated JACS paper and repository record when using the current WormChem data: [1] JACS 2025. doi:10.1021/jacs.4c12519 & [2] Nematode surface chemistry dataset 2025. doi:10.17639/nott.7386
Dataset submissions
Share validated nematode chemistry datasets.
WormChem welcomes validated nematode chemistry datasets from any nematode species. Submissions should be sufficiently described to allow comparison across species, developmental stage, age, genotype, sample type and analytical method.
Species, stage and background.
Species, strain, developmental stage, age, sample type, wild-type or mutant background, culture conditions, host, diet or treatment.
Method and evidence.
Analytical method, instrument, sample preparation, processed feature or compound table, annotation confidence and supporting evidence.
Traceable and reusable.
Repository link, DOI or publication where available, submitter contact, ORCID and licence information.
Contact and community
Building the WormChem community.
WormChem is led by Dr Veeren Chauhan, an Assistant Professor in Whole Organism Analytics at the School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham. The longer-term aim is to support a community-built chemical map of nematode biology, connecting molecular features with developmental time, ageing, genotype and anatomical space.
Collaborate.
Researchers interested in nematode chemistry, chemical imaging, metabolomics or comparative organismal chemistry are welcome to get in touch.
Improve WormChem.
Feedback on the explorer, dataset structure, feature interpretation or future functionality is welcome as the resource develops.