Sync to grow: Oscillation of gene activity may underlie how embryos grow in proportion
Thursday, December 20, 2012 - 11:30
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org)—From a single-cell egg to a fully functional body: as embryos develop and grow, they must form organs that are in proportion to the overall size of the embryo. The exact mechanism underlying this fundamental characteristic, called scaling, is still unclear. However, a team of researchers from EMBL Heidelberg is now one step closer to understanding it. They have discovered that scaling of the future vertebrae in a mouse embryo is controlled by how the expression of some specific genes oscillates, in a coordinated way, between neighbouring cells. Published today in Nature, their findings highlight how important this oscillatory pattern, and its regulation, is to ensure that embryos grow up to become well-proportioned animals.