FMI researchers discovered a ’walkie-talkie’ mechanism that allows a developing embryo’s cells to sync up. Photo credits: Georgios Misailidis
FMI researchers discovered a 'walkie-talkie' mechanism that allows a developing embryo's cells to sync up. Photo credits: Georgios Misailidis - Scientists have known that when a mouse embryo is developing, the cells that will become its spine and muscles switch specific genes on and off repeatedly, in a synchronous fashion. However, there are deep mysteries about how these cells synchronize. FMI researchers have now developed a mathematical model that not only better explains how spontaneous synchronization arises in a developing mouse embryo, but may also offer some fundamental clues about how other biological systems sync up. From fireflies flashing together to an audience's applause falling into a beat to neurons firing in sync, life offers many examples of spontaneous synchronization across populations. In the developing mouse embryo, for example, synchronous waves of gene-expression patterns across cells drive the formation of tissue segments that then develop into vertebrae and skeletal muscle. While the current go-to model of synchronous systems has captured the basic mechanism underlying this process, it couldn't explain what information cells exchange and what the cells do with the information they get.
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