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September 20th, 2006, 10:46 AM
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Member
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 174
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Genetics News: Mechanism To Organize Nervous System Conserved In Evolution
Quote:
A study led by University of California, San Diego biologists suggests that, contrary to the prevailing view, the process in early development that partitions the nervous system in fruit flies and vertebrates, like humans, evolved from a common ancestor.
The findings suggest a unified model of early neural development in which at least part of the mechanism for creating neural patterning has been preserved from a shared ancestral organism that lived over 500 million years ago.
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[TIS - middle of article omitted]
Quote:
“Our findings suggest that BMPs may once have been sufficient to organize the entire dorsal-ventral axis of a common ancestor,†concluded Bier.
“BMPs and the neural identity genes appear to have been conserved in evolution, while other cues such as Dorsal in flies and Hedgehog in vertebrates may have been borrowed from other pattern systems after the split between vertebrate and invertebrate lineages. As larger organisms evolved, the gradient of a single protein may not have been able to provide sufficient information to subdivide the embryo from top to bottom.â€
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Source: Science Daily
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