KA McVey, JA Mink, IB Snapp, WS Timberlake, CE Todt, R Negga and VA Fitsanakis
An ideal model organism should generally have three essential characteristics: successful sexual crosses should be easy to perform; a fully sequenced genome should be available; and it should be easy to induce reliable and reproducible DNA mutations. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), introduced to the broad scientific community by Brenner in 1974, fulfills each of these three essential guidelines. Although initially used extensively by the developmental biology community, its recent adoption by the biomedical and environmental toxicology scientists has strengthened experimental design power in these fields. Relative to traditional model organisms, e.g. rat, mouse, dog (mammals) and Arabidopsis (plants), the invertebrate species C. elegans has begun to be recognized as invaluable. For example, it requires a relatively small budget project compared to other possible organisms, is quite small and transparent, has a short lifespan and has relatively simple anatomy and physiology.
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