相关论文: Studying evolution of the primary body axis in viv…
Understanding cell fate patterning and morphogenesis in the mammalian embryo remains a formidable challenge. Recently, in vivo models based on embryonic stem cells (ESCs) have emerged as complementary methods to quantitatively dissect the…
"Self-organization" has become a watchword in developmental biology, characterizing observations in which embryonic or induced stem cells of animals replicate morphological steps and outcomes seen in intact embryos. While the term was…
Developmental constraints have been postulated to limit the space of feasible phenotypes and thus shape animal evolution. These constraints have been suggested to be the strongest during either early or mid-embryogenesis, which corresponds…
Segmentation in arthropod embryogenesis represents a well-known example of body plan diversity. Striped patterns of gene expression that lead to the future body segments appear simultaneously or sequentially in long and short germ-band…
In this article, I put forward the idea that the neoplastic process (NP) has deep evolutionary roots and make specific predictions about the connection between cancer and the formation of the first embryo, which allowed for the evolutionary…
Gene expression is inherently noisy, posing a challenge to understanding how precise and reproducible patterns of gene expression emerge in mammals. We investigate this phenomenon using gastruloids, an in vitro model for early mammalian…
Rhythmic and sequential segmentation of the embryonic body plan is a vital developmental patterning process in all vertebrate species. However, a theoretical framework capturing the emergence of dynamic patterns of gene expression from the…
During development, embryos perform a mesmerizing choreography, which is crucial for the correct shaping, positioning and function of all organs. The cellular properties powering animal morphogenesis have been the focus of much attention.…
A model of pattern formation in living systems is presented. The pattern is achieved by the sequential interaction of two signaling pathways. The coupling of the pattern to the (thick) epithelial sheet changes is given, when the Gauss…
Like a rocket being propelled into space, evolution has engineered flies to launch into adulthood via multiple stages. Flies develop and deploy two distinct bodies, linked by the transformative process of metamorphosis. The fly larva is a…
Constraints in embryonic development are thought to bias the direction of evolution by making some changes less likely, and others more likely, depending on their consequences on ontogeny. Here, we characterize the constraints acting on…
In early development, regulation of transcription results in precisely positioned and highly reproducible expression patterns that specify cellular identities. How transcription, a fundamentally noisy molecular process, is regulated to…
The decisive role of Embryology in understanding the evolution of animal forms is founded and deeply rooted in the history of science. It is recognized that the emergence of multicellularity would not have been possible without the…
During embryonic development, a complex organism is formed from a single starting cell. These processes of growth and differentiation are driven by large transcriptional changes, which are following the expression and activity of…
Across metazoans, early embryos exhibit a strikingly conserved slowing down of their cell duplication speed, despite widely varying developmental paces and underlying molecular mechanisms. Here we show that this common behavior arises…
A model to describe the arising of new structures in an initial homogeneous biological system is proposed. The essay is motivated by the intention to work on a non-equilibrium situation grouping together several mechanisms and processes as:…
The early fly embryo offers a relatively pure version of the problem of spatial scaling in biological pattern formation. Within three hours, a "blueprint" for the final segmented body plan of the animal is visible in striped patterns of…
During development, cell fates are determined through a combination of intracellular transcriptional regulations and extracellular signaling. As a result, spatial patterns of different cell types arise. We investigate the decision between…
The body plan of the fruit fly is determined by the expression of just a handful of genes. We show that the spatial patterns of expression for several of these genes scale precisely with the size of the embryo. Concretely, discrete…
A key process in the life of any multicellular organism is its development from a single egg into a full grown adult. The first step in this process often consists of forming a tissue layer out of randomly placed cells on the surface of the…