What is Caenorhabditis elegans?
Q: What is Caenorhabditis elegans?
A: Caenorhabditis elegans is a species of roundworm or nematode.
Q: Why is C. elegans important?
A: C. elegans is important because much research has been done on its genetics and development, making it a model organism used to study animal development and behavior. It was also the first multicellular organism for which scientists were able to sequence its whole genome.
Q: How big are C. elegans worms?
A: C. elegans worms are about 1 mm long.
Q: Are they parasites?
A: No, they are free-living organisms that live in soil and feed on bacteria.
Q: What types of sex does C. elegans have?
A: C. elegans has two types of sex - hermaphrodite and male - with males being slightly smaller than hermaphrodites. Hermaphrodites make sperms when in a larval stage and ova in an adult stage, while males can only make sperm.
Q: Who began studying using C.?elegans?
A: Study using C .elegans was begun in 1965 by Sydney Brenner, who later went on to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on how the worm's genes cause it to grow and cause some of its cells to die in 2002 along with Robert Horvitz and John Sulston..
Q: Why are animals like C.?elegans good organisms for research?
A: Animals like C .elegans that do not take long to grow and are easy to feed are usually good organisms for research as they can be kept alive easily in laboratories at 25ºC where they spend 14 hours as an embryo
