Asynchronous cell cycle phase key to critical stage of animal embryonic development

Cell division of a mother cell to produce two identical daughter cells is known as mitosis. This underlies the early embryonic development of sea squirts, when it changes from being highly synchronized to displaying a distinct spatial pattern that accompanies neural tube formation. However, researchers did not understand what controlled this switch in mitotic timing. A recent study from the University of Tsukuba reveals that the change represents the beginning of a mitotic wave that passes from the back to the front of the embryo following loss of asynchrony of a gap phase of the cell cycle, which had until now masked an asynchronous synthesis phase. The study was reported in Developmental Cell.

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