Skip to main content
A researcher has found a way to show embryonic development in great detail. He has movies that show hordes of disconnected cells moving to opposite poles of the early embryo. This mass migration shows that cells react to chemical agents that diffuse throughout the tissues and it runs counter to what I've been saying about CRF's.

It should be noted, however, that early on cells need to reproduce rapidly and take positions that are not too specific. This is done so that many tissues can start their development simultaneously. You will still see mass migrations occuring after the formation of the three germ layers but you will also start to see more and more cohesive behavior.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Biological Pathways Symbology

Post a Comment
Read more

Mutations

This post is based on speculation. It is an attempt at explaining the prevalence of mutations in cancer and their role in perpetuating the cancerous state. The transcriptome of a cell may be classified into two sets: embryonic and adult. There are, of course, conserved elements that form a union of these sets but we are more interested in the embryonic transcriptome exclusive of the union. We now consider the two Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) mechanisms that have been studied to date: Global Genomic Repair (GGR) and transcription-coupled repair (TCR). Atanassov, et.al. A mutation can take place at or near an adult transcriptome and it is usually repaired by TCR. However, if a mutation takes place at an embryonic transcriptome during the adult stage , TCR can not repair it and, because it is in the adult, GGR may not be able to effect repairs. According to Lans et.al., "Intriguingly, in juvenile and adult animals TCR is the major NER pathway involved in the UV response. Analysi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What about the unattached cell?

While this procedure is not what I had in mind when I spoke of being able to reprogram the cancer cell, I'm nevertheless glad that reprogramming was found to be possible for the unattached cancer cell. The unattached immune cell is needed everywhere in the body and it would make sense for a cancer derived from an immune cell to differentiate into other immune cells as needed. This is what was found by the Stanford researchers--reprogramming of leukemia cells into normal granulocytes and macrophages via supplied ligands or transcription factors. The initial observation from Stanford came about as a result of a shotgun approach. This approach should also be used for the solid tumor and if their cocktail doesn't do it, I would consider extracting Embryonic Cell Surface molecules from various developmental time points. Finding the right CRF for the differentiation of  solid tumors is right around the corner. My next post will be one showing what the CRF theory helps explain wh...
Post a Comment
Read more