A Transcriptional Lineage of the Early C. elegans Embryo.

A prevalent hypothesis for the cell-to-cell coordination of the phenomena of early development is that a defined mixture of different mRNA species at specific abundances in each cell determines fate and behavior. With this dataset we explore this hypothesis by quantifying the abundance of every mRNA species in every individual cell of the early C. elegans embryo, for which the exact life history and fate is precisely documented.