IUBio GIL .. BIOSCI/Bionet News .. Biosequences .. Software .. FTP

morphogenesis deterministic?

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Wed Dec 11 10:04:09 EST 2002


A friend asked me a question which I would like to pass on to this forum.
Specifically, the question is about the degree of variance (at cell and
ultrastructure scale) within a population of genetically identical
individuals raised under 1) very similiar 2) rather different conditions.

TIA,

Eugen Leitl.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Can you tell me wether natural morphogenesis is deterministic? A
C.Elegans has precisely 302 neurons. Large animals have individual
features, even if they have identical genes. Are these features due to
environmental factors (reading errors, radioactivity, different
chemistry due to different food or infections....) that is: Would 2
twins have exactly the same arrangement of cells if they lived under
exactly identical conditions?

---



More information about the Celegans mailing list

Send comments to us at archive@iubioarchive.bio.net