Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans
An adult hermaphrodite C. elegans worm
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Nematoda
Class:	Chromadorea
Order:	Rhabditida
Family:	Rhabditidae
Genus:	Caenorhabditis
Species:	C. elegans
Binomial name
Caenorhabditis elegans (Maupas, 1900)[1]
Subspecies
Caenorhabditis elegans var. Bergerac[2] (for instance strain BO)[3] Caenorhabditis elegans var. Bristol[4] (for instance strain N2)[5]

Caenorhabditis elegans (/ˌsiːnoʊræbˈdaɪtəs ˈɛləɡæns/^[6]) is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments.^[7] It is the type species of its genus.^[8] The name is a blend of the Greek caeno- (recent), rhabditis (rod-like)^[9] and Latin elegans (elegant). In 1900, Maupas initially named it Rhabditides elegans. Osche placed it in the subgenus Caenorhabditis in 1952, and in 1955, Dougherty raised Caenorhabditis to the status of genus.^[10]

C. elegans is an unsegmented pseudocoelomate and lacks respiratory or circulatory systems.^[11] Most of these nematodes are hermaphrodites and a few are males.^[12] Males have specialised tails for mating that include spicules.

In 1963, Sydney Brenner proposed research into C. elegans, primarily in the area of neuronal development. In 1974, he began research into the molecular and developmental biology of C. elegans, which has since been extensively used as a model organism.^[13] It was the first multicellular organism to have its whole genome sequenced, and in 2019^[14] it was the first organism to have its connectome (neuronal "wiring diagram") completed.^[15][16][17]

As of 2024,^[update] four Nobel prizes have been won for work done on C. elegans.^[18]