Researchers from King's College London have provided the first experimental evidence confirming a great British mathematician's theory of how biological patterns such as tiger stripes or leopard spots are formed.
Biotechnology
Feb 19, 2012
23
1
Researchers at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel have developed a new technique using nanobodies. Employing the so-called "Morphotrap", the distribution of the morphogen Dpp, which plays an important role in wing ...
Bio & Medicine
Nov 9, 2015
0
25
(PhysOrg.com) -- A long-standing mystery surrounding a fundamental process in plant biology has been solved by a team of scientists at the University of California, Davis.
Plants & Animals
Jun 4, 2009
3
0
Morphogens are molecules that travel from cell to cell in order to pattern tissues in the embryo. These molecules are important not only for the embryo during development, but also for the adult during tissue repair. However, ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 9, 2022
0
16
For a tiny embryo to develop into an adult organism, its cells must develop in precise patterns and interact with their neighbors in carefully orchestrated ways. To create complex tissues and organs—from the pattern of ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Oct 15, 2020
0
188
A study by IRB Barcelona's Development and Growth Control Laboratory, headed by ICREA researcher Marco Milán, reveals how Dpp and Wg morphogens regulate organ proportions and patterning of the fly wing through independent ...
Cell & Microbiology
Feb 21, 2020
0
12
It is the concentration of a few signaling molecules that determines the fate of individual cells during the early development of organisms. In the renowned journal Current Biology, a team of molecular biologists led by Pia ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 22, 2009
0
0
Princeton researchers have developed a new method to better understand how an embryo's basic molecular makeup helps ensure that the embryo's development occurs reliably every time.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 1, 2011
0
0
It's no surprise that using human embryos for biological and medical research comes with many ethical concerns. Correct though it is to proceed with caution in these matters, the fact is that much science would benefit from ...
Biotechnology
Jun 27, 2019
0
0
In the fairy tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," Goldilocks invades the bears' house, where she finds three bowls of porridge, but only one has just the right temperature. Similarly, in biological processes, there often ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 15, 2018
0
12
A morphogen is a substance governing the pattern of tissue development, and the positions of the various specialized cell types within a tissue. It spreads from a localized source and forms a concentration gradient across a developing tissue[citation needed].
In developmental biology a morphogen is rigorously used to mean a signaling molecule that acts directly on cells (not through serial induction) to produce specific cellular responses dependent on morphogen concentration[citation needed].
Well-known morphogens include: Decapentaplegic / Transforming growth factor beta, Hedgehog / Sonic Hedgehog, Wingless / Wnt, Epidermal growth factor, Fibroblast growth factor, and Retinoic acid[citation needed].
Morphogens are defined conceptually, not chemically[citation needed], so simple compounds such as retinoic acid (the active metabolite of retinol or vitamin A) may also act as morphogens[citation needed].
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
