Javed K and Gurdon JB (2022), The initiation and maintenance of a differentia...

XB-ART-58770

Dev Biol 2022 Mar 01;483:34-38. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2021.12.009.

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The initiation and maintenance of a differentiated state in development.

Javed K , Gurdon JB .

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Proper function of the body is maintained by an intricate interaction and communication among cells. during the animal development how these cells are formed and maintained is an important yet elusive. Understanding of how cells such as muscle and nerve cells maintain their identities would enable us to control the diseases which include malfunctioning in cellular identities such as cancer. In this article, we describe how the concept of formation and maintenance of cell identities has changed over the last 100 years. We will also briefly describe our current experimental work which includes transcriptional dynamics, and protein-protein interaction and how they are bringing new molecular insights. We also describe liquid-liquid phase separation as a potential new mechanism for the stability of gene expression in the non dvididng specialised cells of Xenopus oocytes.

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Species referenced: Xenopus laevis
Genes referenced: prox1
GO keywords: nerve development [+]

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	Graphical Abstract.
	Fig. 1. Egg cytoplasmic determinants and their role in muscle development in mollusks llyanassa A) showing a picture E.G. Conklin taken from (sbdonline.org). B) the yellow egg-plasm is concentrated in prospero and nunb and then leads to the formation of the muscles in the larva. This example demonstrates the role of spatially localised cytoplasmic determinants in specifying the cell fate in development.

	Fig. 4. Stability of differentiated state by entrapment of transcription factors in close proximity to trasncription start site. A neurogenic transcription factor shows a remarkably long site occupancy time in the Xenopus oocytes which is a non-dividing specialised cell. Its has been recently discovered that the injected transcriptionally active DNA induce the local entrapment of general trasncription machinery to small foci. The foci behave selectively, uptaking cell fate trasncription factors while leaving large molecules such DNAs to enter within. This phenomenon may explain how non dividing specialised cells maintain high expression of some genes for decades.