Tracing the origin of heterogeneity and symmetry breaking in the early mammalian embryo.
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Publication Date
2018-05-08Journal Title
Nat Commun
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
9
Issue
1
Pages
1819
Language
eng
Type
Article
Physical Medium
Electronic
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Chen, Q., Shi, J., Tao, Y., & Zernicka-Goetz, M. (2018). Tracing the origin of heterogeneity and symmetry breaking in the early mammalian embryo.. Nat Commun, 9 (1), 1819. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04155-2
Abstract
A fundamental question in developmental and stem cell biology concerns the origin and nature of signals that initiate asymmetry leading to pattern formation and self-organization. Instead of having prominent pre-patterning determinants as present in model organisms (worms, sea urchin, frog), we propose that the mammalian embryo takes advantage of more subtle cues such as compartmentalized intracellular reactions that generate micro-scale inhomogeneity, which is gradually amplified over several cellular generations to drive pattern formation while keeping developmental plasticity. It is therefore possible that by making use of compartmentalized information followed by its amplification, mammalian embryos would follow general principle of development found in other organisms in which the spatial cue is more robustly presented.
Keywords
Subcellular Fractions, Embryo, Nonmammalian, Animals, Mice, Signal Transduction, Cell Compartmentation, Cell Differentiation, Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental, Cell Lineage, Body Patterning, Embryonic Development, Models, Biological, Embryo, Mammalian
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (098287/Z/12/Z)
European Research Council (669198)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04155-2
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283436
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