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C. elegans Cell Lineage:

Background Information and Tools
for Lineaging this 4D Embryo Development
A Bit History about C. elegans cell lineage: When was the whole lineage finished? How was the lineage done?
Cell Lineage: The meaning of cell lineage/fate map in development
4-dimensional Movie: What is a 4D movie? How is a 4D movie generated?
VisBio for Lineaging: Brief tutorial and information regarding the use of VisBio to lineage the 4D embryo development movie.
WORMBASE Cell Pedigree: WORMBASE has the information for cell pedigree of C. elegans. A brief tutorial to navigate "WORMBASE cell pedigree" can be found in this link.

 

Lineage a C. elegans Embryonic Development Up to 8-Cell Stage
4D Movie Data Set : Click to download a 4D dataset of this embryo development up to 8-cell stage. The name of the file is "EmbryoCE.zip" which consists 12 tiff files. To unzip the file into VisBio readable files, one can use WinZip (for PC) or Stuffit Expander (for Mac). Tutorial for Stuffit Expander is available here.
VisBio: Click to download the program – VisBio to your desktop to lineage the downloaded 4D movie.

Questions to Get you Thinking:

1. What does the lineage (family tree) look like for each focal plane?
2. Does a cell always have the same neighbors and how important this might be in its development?
3. Why is the cell lineage/cell pattern of lineage the way it is?
4. Does a specific cell always appear at around the same time in every embryo?
5. Which of the daughter cells divides first?
6. Why are two daughter cells unequal size after cell division?
7. Why do the edges of the cells wiggle so much?
8. When is a cell’s fate determined?
9. How are different cell types generated?

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