The same genes that make a cell pluripotent and have the potential to become any other type of cell during the embryonic stage govern the subsequent process by which cells choose their own cellular identity and that of their offspring.
This was verified by a team of researchers led by the Severo Ochoa Center for Molecular Biology (a joint center of the Supreme Council of Scientific Research, the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and the National Research Center), and the results of their work were obtained. It was published yesterday in Science Advances.
After fertilization, a zygote is formed, which is a single cell from which a whole organism develops; In the first divisions, the cells are symmetrical, have great proliferative capacity and flexibility that allows them to develop different cells such as neurons or hepatocytes.
CSIC stated in a note released yesterday that this power is gradually lost during embryonic development, as cells make lineage decisions and differentiate themselves.
“Until now these genes were thought to only make a cell pluripotent, but we’ve seen that they also influence the next process, the process of differentiation,” said CSIC researcher Miguel Manzanares from the Center for Molecular Biology.
He determined that after implantation in the womb, the embryo undergoes a process called gastrulation, whereby cells choose their fate within the body, at which point the pluripotency ceases to exist as such.
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