WormBook is an open access, comprehensive collection of original, peer-reviewed chapters covering topics related to the biology of Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans is a free-living, transparent nematode , about 1 mm in length, which lives in temperate soil environments. Research into the molecular and developmental biology of C. elegans was begun in 1974 by Sydney Brenner and it has since been used extensively as a model...

(C. elegans). WormBook also includes WormMethods, an up-to-date collection of methods and protocols for C. elegans researchers.

WormBook is the online text companion to Wormbase

WormBase

WormBase is an online bioinformatics database of the biology and genome of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and related nematodes....

, the C. elegans model organism

Model organism

A model organism is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the organism model will provide insight into the workings of other organisms. Model organisms are in vivo models and are widely used to...

 database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

. Capitalizing on the World Wide Web, WormBook links in-text references (e.g. gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

s, alleles, protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

s, literature citations) with primary biological database

Biological database

Biological databases are libraries of life sciences information, collected from scientific experiments, published literature, high-throughput experiment technology, and computational analyses. They contain information from research areas including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, microarray...

s such as WormBase and PubMed

PubMed

PubMed is a free database accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez information retrieval system...

. C. elegans was the first multi-cellular organism to have its genome

Genome

In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....

sequenced. It is a model organism for studying developmental genetics and neurobiology.

Contents

The content of WormBook is categorized into the sections listed below, each filled with a variety of relevant chapters. These sections include:

• Genetics and genomics
• Molecular biology
• Biochemistry
• Cell biology
• Signal transduction

• Developmental control
• Post-embryonic development
• Sex determination
• The germ line

• Neurobiology and behavior
• Evolution and ecology
• Disease models and drug discovery

• WormMethods

External links

• The WormBook website
• WormBase, the database companion to WormBook
• The WormBook Discussion Forum