CSB328H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Schmidtea Mediterranea, Beta-Catenin, Cellular Differentiation
6 Oct 2016
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Neoblasts: pluripotent stem cells, can renew themselves and give rise to differentiated cell types, not all neoblasts are identical to each other, they have different potentials, different subclasses of neoblasts. Can go back to being sigma epidermis. Can go back to sigma: all neoblasts have a gene called smedwi-1, but different subclasses to neoblasts have different active genes too. Zfg-1: neoblast to differentiated cell type (eyespot) 3 cell types make up the eye and all three come from neoblasts. If you have only 1 of these cell types, you"re not going to have a functional eye. You need all 3 types and in the right numbers. First decision is that it must become an eye precursor cell. To become an eye precursor cell, it needs certain genes to be active: ovo gene, extremely important for eye development. The precursor cell has to undergo another decision, because it could become a photoreceptor precursor cell or a pigment cell.
