Earth and Sky.
A team of scientists believes it's solved a longstanding mystery about the development of cells in animal embryos. After an egg is fertilized, cells begin to divide. All the cells have exactly the same geneticlly information as each other. The mystery was how embryonic cells later know to seperate themselves into skin cells, brain cells and so on.
Doctor Claudio Stern is an embryologist at the University College London in the United Kingdom. Stern's team has observed a process in chicken embyros by which cells at one end of the embryo act differently from cells elsewhere in the embryro. Only at one end of the embryo, some cells piled up on top of each other. This different behavior provides a driving force for other cells to move and ultimately know what sorts of cells to become.
So what we've found () there is a mechenism by which cells that warming to be embryo undergo a different behavior from the rest. That position was a group of cells and signals between one group of cells and others to the center of the embryo where the business is going to happen.
Stern said the next step will be to find out what make some cells go to the inside of an embryo to make internal organs while others stay on the outside to give rise to skin and so on. This work brings us a step closer to understanding life on earth.
This is Earth and Sky, a clear voice for science.We're at Earth and Sky.org.
A team of scientists believes it has solved a longstanding mystery about the development of cells in animal embryos.
After
an egg is fertilized, cells begin to divide. All the cells have exactly
the same genetic information as each other. The mystery was how
embryonic cells later know to separate themselves into skin cells,
brain cells, and so on.
Dr. Claudio Stern is an
embryologist at the University College, London in the United Kingdom.
Stern’s team has observed a process in chicken embryos by which cells
at one end of the embryo act differently from cells elsewhere in the
embryo. Only at one end of the embryo, some cells pile up on top of
each other. This different behavior provides a driving force for other
cells to move and ultimately “know” what sorts of cells to become.
Claudio Stern: So
what we’ve uncovered there is a mechanism by which cells at one end of
the embryo undergo a different behavior from the rest. That positions a
group of cells, and sends signals between one group of cells and others
to the center of the embryo where the business end is going to happen.
Stern
said the next step will be to find out what makes some cells go to the
inside of an embryo to make internal organs, while others stay on the
outside to give rise to skin and so on. This work brings us a step
closer to understanding life on Earth.
posted on 2008-02-06 22:52
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