Maternal Ribosomes Are Sufficient for Tissue Diversification during Embryonic Development in C. elegans (Developmental Cell)

Cenik et al. find that Caenorhabditis elegans is able to complete embryogenesis with only maternal-deposited ribosomal components but arrests before progression from the first larval stage. Organism-wide arrest in larvae mosaic for zygotic ribosome production-competent and non-competent cells suggests that ribosomal insufficiency in a subset of cells triggers whole-organism arrest.