PLoS Genet. 14, e1007559 (2018)

Caenorhabditis elegans is the organism of choice for exploring many biological phenomena due to its small size, rapid generation time, and well-described genome. Despite the multitude of studies using this worm as a model, little information was available on the transcriptome of the four tissues of adult worms—muscle, neuron, intestine, and epidermis—versus those of embryonic and larval stage animals. By busting open worms and separating tissues, investigators compared the expression profiles of the four tissues with single cell resolution. They identified mRNAs that were ubiquitously expressed across all tissues versus those that were enriched in one. In addition, they also characterized differences in alternative transcript splicing. For example, authors observed differences in ribosomal proteins and cytoskeletal proteins in the different tissues.