Model organism

A model organism is one that is used for close study because some of its characteristics make it particularly good for studying rather than because it has any economic or other importance. There are many model organisms. The first was probably the bacterium Escherichia coli, a bacterium common in the human digestive system (and usually harmless--the dangerous E. coli 0157:H7 is a rare strain). This also lead to a study of many bacteriophages, particularly phage lambda.

In eukaryotes, several yeasts, particularly Saccharomyces cerevisiae ("baker's yeast"), have been widely studied, largely because they are quick and easy to grow. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster was studied again because it was easy to grow at least for a multicellular organism. The roundworm? Caenorhabditis elegans is studied because it has very sterotyped development patterns.

Preliminary list of important model organisms:

Unicellular :

• [Escherichia coli]? or, more popular, [E. coli]?
• [Saccaromyces cerevisiae]? - a kind of yeast?
• [Mycoplasma genitalium]?

Multicellular :

• Arabidopsis?
• [Caenorhabditis elegans]?, usually called [C. elegans]?
• Drosophila?, usually represented by [Drosophila melanogaster]? - a kind of [fruit fly]?
• Rat?
• Zebrafish

Viruses etc. :

• lambda phage