Deciphering the Underlying Mechanism of Specification and Differentiation: The Sea Urchin Gene Regulatory Network

Abstract

A single cell, the fertilized egg, gives rise to a tremendous diversity of cell types to create the various tissues and organs that eventually form the adult body plan. The DNA can be thought of as both the hardware and the software of this developmental program, and it also serves a memory function to convey the program from one generation to the next. How this information is encoded and how this program is executed are two fundamental questions in biology. A first step toward answering these questions is to understand the mechanisms that control differential gene expression and lead to the formation of the body plan.

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