Cytoplasmic determination and distribution of developmental potential in the embryo of Caenorhabditis elegans

✍ Scribed by Einhard Schierenberg

• Book ID: 102761575
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 887 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0265-9247
• DOI: 10.1002/bies.950100402

✦ Synopsis

the embryo can develop outside the bryonic development of an organism

Development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been described completely on a cell-by-cell basis. In an invariant pattern five somatic founder cells and the primordial germ cell are generated within the first hour after the onset of cleavage. Using a laser microbeam for manipulation of individual blastomeres several aspects of early embryogenesis have been investigated, including the expression of cellular polarity, the localization of lineage-speciJic cleavage potential, the necessity for early cell-cell interaction, and the control of diyerential cell-cycle timing. The experiments demonstrate the central importance of a correct partitioning of cytoplasmic components during early embryogenesis and suggest a stepwise, binary segregation mechanism associated with the unequal cleavages in the germline.