Mixing and matching genes to keep nerve cells straight
Monday, June 9, 2008 - 12:28
in Biology & Nature
With fewer than 30,000 human genes with which to work, Nature has to mix and match to generate the myriad types of neurons or nerve cells needed to assemble the brain and nervous system. Keeping this involved process on the straight and narrow requires a clever balance of promotion and inhibition, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in a report that appears in the current edition of the journal Developmental Cell.