Active balance between two proteins ensures that embryos develop with the proper proportions
Friday, August 2, 2013 - 09:00
in Biology & Nature
Early in development, the embryo establishes the various axes that determine the symmetry of the mature animal. For example, the patterning of dorsal and ventral surfaces governs formation of the organism's back and belly. There are developmental mechanisms that regulate this patterning to ensure that the various body parts develop in proportion to each other but exactly how these mechanisms function remains uncertain. Yoshiki Sasai, Hidehiko Inomata and colleagues from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology have now clarified how dorsal-ventral (DV) scaling is maintained in the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis.