WormClassroom

Commonly known as “worm” in C. elegans research community, it is a tiny free living nematode. Read more about C. elegans….

One particular advantage of using C. elegans for determining cell lineages is that it is transparent, allowing the dividing cells to be traced during embryonic development.

Cell lineage is analogous to a family tree of cell types. One is able to find a cell’s predecessors (“parents”) and successors (“children”) by tracing the tree. The complete cell lineage of C. elegans has been mapped out.

“The cell lineage is the description of the history of each embryonic cell beginning with the un-cleaved egg, the products of every division are traced until the rudiments of the embryonic organs have become distinct” (Ways of Knowing, John Moore, p. 494). As the complete cell lineage shows above, from top to bottom, you can see an un-cleaved, just fertilized zygote, the P0 cell divides into two daughter cells (AB and P1 cells). The two daughter cells then divide into more daughter cells that eventually form a map and enable one to trace a cell’s predecessors and successors.

More About C. elegans (off site)

More About Cell Lineage/Fate Mapping (off site)

• Wikipedia article on fate mapping
• Teaching using C. elegans
• The completion of C. elegans embryonic Cell Lineage: the original article available online
• Cell Fate Determination in C. elegans
• The Horvitz Laboratory
• C. elegans: the cell lineage and beyond (PDF )
• Cell proliferation and growth in C. elegans
• Towards Automatic Construction of Cell-Lineage of C. elegans from Nomarski DIC Microscope Images (PDF )
• Patterning the C. elegans embryo: moving beyond the cell lineage (Trends in Genetics. 1999 Aug;15(8):307-13 (Labouesse, M. & Mango, S. E.)) (PDF )
• Specification of cell destiny in early Caenorhabditis elegans embryo (abstract available) (Naturwissenschaften. 1997 Feb;84(2):55-64)
• Pattern formation: regional specification in the early C. elegans embryo. (R. Schnabel, Bioessays. 1996 Jul;18(7):591-4)
• Science as a way of knowing-developmental biology. (Moore, A. J., The American Society of Zoologists, 27, 415-573 (1987).