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Trends in Genetics,
1997]
Caenorhabditis elegans first became a 'serious' model organism after Brenner's publication of The Genetics of Caenorhabditis elegans. Since then a wealth of knowledge has been acquired regarding this rather simple metazoan animal. Evolution might have been programmed to develop C. elegans for the benefit of biological science. The transparency and invariant cell lineage of C. elegans makes it a desirable organism for cell biology research. Similarly, its large brood size and small generation interval make it an extremely useful organism for the geneticist. Additionally, C. elegans research benefits greatly from the efforts of pioneer reseachers who compiled the complete cell lineage diagram, the neuronal 'wiring' diagram, the physical genetic map (derived from an almost coniguous array of cosmids and YACs covering all six chromosomes) and finally an extensive catalogue of cDNA and almost complete genomic sequences. Murphy's Law prevails however, and C. elegans researchers are cursed with an organism for which no in vitro cell culture system exists, in which gene knockout technology is laborious at best and in which single-cell electrophysiology has only recently become possible. The book C. elegans II is part of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory monograph series, as was its precursor, The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The book is more than an update of the previous one and includes chapters concerning a number of areas of C. elegans research only in their infancy in 1988....