Resource: Cell Differentiation

Every tissue and organ is made up of living cells. Some cells provide protection; some give structural support or assist in locomotion; others offer a means of transporting nutrients. All cells develop and function as part of the organized system -- the organism -- they make up.

Yet each of us originated as a single, simple-looking cell -- a fertilized egg, or zygote -- so tiny that it can barely be seen without a microscope. (A human egg cell is about 1/100th of a centimeter in diameter, or a bit smaller than the width of a human hair.) Shortly after fertilization, the zygote begins dividing, replicating itself again and again. Before long, a growing mass, or blastula, of dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of cells called stem cells forms; each stem cell is only one-fourth to one-tenth the diameter of the original zygote, but otherwise nearly identical to it.

The majority of organisms, however, consist of many more than one type of cell. Indeed, about 200 different types of cells -- many highly specialized -- make up the tissues and organs of the human body. The cells that line the retina of your eye, for example, have a structure and function that is markedly different from those of the muscle cells in your bicep.

Stem cells begin their transformation into the different types of cells that make up the human body during a phase in the development process called cell differentiation. In vertebrates, differentiation begins during a stage called gastrulation, when distinct tissue layers first form. Like most other developmental processes, differentiation is controlled by genes, the genetic instructions encoded in the DNA of every cell. Genes instruct each cell how and when to build the proteins that allow it to create the structures, and ultimately perform the functions, specific to its type of cell.

Surprisingly, every nucleus of every cell has the same set of genes. A heart cell nucleus contains skin cell genes, as well as the genes that instruct stomach cells how to absorb nutrients. This suggests that in order for cells to differentiate -- to become different from one another -- certain genes must somehow be activated, while others remain inactive. Although scientists have come a long way toward understanding how cells coordinate the well-timed activation and inactivation of their genes, researchers have had little success inducing these changes artificially. Gaining such control over the developmental process, experts believe, may eventually result in cures for a wide variety of diseases, including diabetes and cancer.

Why do you think the heart forms early in an embryo's development?

How would you explain the similarities among bird, mammal, and reptile embryos at the early stages of development?

What directs the sequence of events during embryonic development?

People could observe the development of an embryo before they had the tools to see cells and parts of cells such as DNA. How do you think they explained the development from embryo to organism?

How would the discovery of DNA and how DNA "works" have changed how scientists could research development?