L4 - Morphogens Flashcards
Which two notable scientists published papers on morphogens
Alan turing
Lewis wolpert
What was Wolperts model known as
Positional information AKA French flag model
Define a morphogen
A morphogen is a soluble secreted molecule which acts at a distance to specify cell fates
The morphogen may specify more than one cell type by forming a concentration gradient
Which cell sees the highest concnetration of morphogen
Which cell sees the lowest
Cell closest to the morphogen secreting cell sees highest
Cell furthest away sees lowest
Morphogen secreted from _______ to the _____
source to sink
Is the morphogen gradient fixed
No it can change with time
Are all of the genes involved in patterning morphogens?
What is an example of a patterning molecule that is NOT a morphogen
No
BMPs during dorsalisation of the neural tube - many different BMPs secreted each capable of instructing a certain cell type
Describe the effect of hyperactive morphogen production in one cell
Information lost at one end and information gained at the other
Describe the effect of an ectopic source of morphogen being present
Information lost in the middle
duplication of either ends with the lowest extreme being lost all together
What are the two major characteristics of a morphogen
Must be able to induce different outputs at different concentrations
Must be able to act directly at a distance
What are factors that cause differentiation of cells which already know their fate called
Permissive factors
Morphogens are _________ signals
Instructive
What would be seen when grafting the ‘morphogen producing cell’ ectopicially in both a true morphogen system and in a permissive system
For true –> duplication as high at both ends
Permissive –> no effect
Describe how permissive signals work
Presence of the signal tells the cells to differentiate but they ALREADY KNOW THEIR FATE.
What could be used as a graft in the chick limb bud graft
Shh soaked bead
Posterior region from a donor embryo
Describe the results of the ectopic graft of posterior region in chick limb bud to the anterior
Duplication of the digits
Apart from ectopic studies how else could you test for the difference between instructive and permissive signalling?
Keep the one signal at uniform concentration
Describe the effects of keeping the concnetration set in both a morphogen and permissive system
In morphogen system only one cell type would be specified - the one specified by the particular cncnetration of the morphogen
In permissive there would be no effect