Scientists discover a division of labor between genetic switches
Two X chromosomes are actually one too many. Female mammalian cells hence switch off one of them – but only when the cells start to specialize into tissues.
Stay updated with breaking news from Embryonic Development. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Two X chromosomes are actually one too many. Female mammalian cells hence switch off one of them – but only when the cells start to specialize into tissues.
Embryonic development follows delicate stages: for everything to go well, many genes must coordinate their activity according to a very meticulous scheme and tempo. This precision mechanism sometimes fails, leading to more or less disabling malformations.
Scientists have shed light on an important stage of early embryonic development that has never been fully mapped out in humans before.
At the earliest stages of human embryonic development, a small collection of cells known as human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) orchestrates growth and differentiation, eventually giving rise to highly specialized human tissues.
Nearly half of our DNA has been written off as junk, the discards of evolution: sidelined or broken genes, viruses that got stuck in our genome and were dismembered or silenced, none of it relevant to the human organism or human evolution.