Dr. Kazunori Yamamoto of the Graduate University for Advanced Studies and Professor Akatsuki Kimura of the National Institute of Genetics said that when the shape of the egg of "specific species of nematodes (C. elegans)" was changed, the cell arrangement pattern was "various nematodes". I found that it changed to "the pattern of".
Multicellular organisms such as humans are formed by increasing the number of one cell (fertilized egg) by cell division.Not only is it important to increase the number of cells, but it is also important for each cell to become a cell with a specific function and divide the role, but in determining this role, it is important to exchange information with adjacent cells. ..Therefore, it is important to ask "what kind of positional relationship are the cells arranged in each other?" During development.Previously it was known that the "direction" of division was related to the cell placement pattern, but now the group assumes that physical "force" control is also important for the cell placement pattern. An experiment was conducted.
It is known that C. elegans, which is often used as a model organism, has a diamond-shaped arrangement pattern at the 4-cell stage.On the other hand, other nematode species have different patterns such as pyramid type, T-shaped, and linear type.This time, the research group physically changed the shape of the C. elegans egg to make the 4-cell stage of C. elegans not a diamond type but a different nematode type (pyramid type, T-shaped, straight line). Succeeded in changing to type).In other words, it was experimentally shown that the shape of the egg is the source of the diversity of cell arrangement patterns.
The nature of power proposed in this study is expected to help us understand the universal robustness and diversity of living things.
