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Spatial Determination in the Early Development of Animals

Examines the spatial determination of cells in an embryo.

Robert Wall (Author)

9780521017268, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 7 July 2005

452 pages
23 x 16 x 3 cm, 0.687 kg

"...an invaluable source of reference. In particular, the author has helped rescue from oblivion many classical experimental results that have progressively disappeared from textbooks simply because they either could not be approached by contemporary molecular techniques, or simply because they could not be explained by existing theoretical models." Pere Alberch, Quarterly Review of Biology

During animal development the descendants of a single cell form many different tissues and organs in appropriate positions within an embryo. To do this they must recognise their position, and this book examines our knowledge of how this is done. It starts by considering how much spatial pattern is already laid down when the egg forms inside the mother, and ends just before the formation of visible organs. Within these limits it considers evidence obtained by a variety of techniques, both experimental and biochemical, and from the embryos of many different animal groups. This breadth of coverage and the amount of detail afforded, particularly to the experimental studies, distinguish it from competing works and will make it a very valuable review. Moreover, in the final chapter the author analyses this evidence in ways which will be new to most readers, and which call into question current ideas about spatial determination.

1. Oogenesis
2. From oocyte to zygote
3. Does cleavage cut up a preformed spatial pattern?
4. The limits of mosaicism in non-spiralian cleavage
5. Cellular interations in the morula and blastula: the case of sea urchin embryos
6. Interactions at morula and blastula in other embryos
7. Interactions between moving cells: the case of amphibian gastrulae
8. Spatial determination in the gastrulae of other groups
9. Determination in embryos showing partial cleavage
10. Patterns and mechanisms in early spatial determination
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Cellular biology [cytology PSF], Developmental biology [PSC]