Important C. elegan Facts

•    1700 genes have been identified in the C. elegan that affect development.

•    Adult C. elegans are around 1 mm long and only around 70 micrometers in diameter.

•    Gastrulation in C. elegans begins at the 28 cell stage.

•    C. elegans are mostly hermaphrodite.

•    Many individual neurons C. elegans are functionally complex.

•    Apoptosis occurs at a large rate in the developmental process of C. elegans.

•    C. elegans have five pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes.

•    The body of a hermaphroditic C. elegan contains 959 somatic cells.

•    Position of sperm entry into the nucleus defines the anterior and posterior axis of the C.elegan.

•    Introns make up 26% of the C.elegans genome.

•    C. elegans and other nematodes are the only eukaryotes currently known to have operons.

•    C. elegans genome sequence is approximately 100 million base pairs long and contains approximately 20,100 protein-coding genes.

Humorous Facts About C. elegans

 

•   C.elegans Have Been into Space                              

 Image courtesy of Rexwallpapers.com under creative commons license 

• C.elegans are used in Nicotine Addiction Research

                                                                          Image courtesy of  Goodwallpapers.com under creative commons license 

• There is currently a $4000 reward offered by WormBase to anyone that can find a new species of nematodes closely related to the C. elegan

Image courtesy of www.Imamuseum.org used under the creative commons license