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Gastrulation and the evolution of development.

L Wolpert1

  • 1Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, London, UK.

Development (Cambridge, England). Supplement
|January 1, 1992
PubMed
Summary

The evolution of animal development likely originated from early eukaryotic cells, with gastrulation processes conserved across species. Developmental reliability, crucial for evolution, is achieved through redundancy rather than negative feedback.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Biology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Cell Biology

Background:

  • Eukaryotic cells may have contained foundational processes for metazoan development, including cell differentiation, patterning, and motility.
  • Protozoa exhibit key patterning processes, yet the divergence into developmental modes based on asymmetric cell division versus cellular interactions remains unclear.
  • Gastrulation, essential for body plan specification, involves conserved morphogenetic movements across diverse organisms, suggesting a fundamental role in creating three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional cell sheets.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the evolutionary origins of metazoan development from early eukaryotic cells.
  • To investigate the conserved nature of gastrulation and its relation to developmental patterning.
  • To understand the role of reliability and redundancy in developmental processes and their impact on evolutionary novelty.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of developmental processes in eukaryotes, protozoa, and metazoans.
  • Examination of gastrulation mechanisms across various species, including Cnidaria.
  • Theoretical consideration of evolutionary selection pressures on embryonic development.

Main Results:

  • Key developmental processes like cell differentiation, patterning, and motility may have originated in ancestral eukaryotic cells.
  • Gastrulation movements are highly conserved, supporting Haeckel's gastrea theory for the origin of early metazoans.
  • Developmental processes are primarily selected for reliability, potentially explaining the embryo's "privileged" status in evolution and the emergence of novel structures like the neural crest.

Conclusions:

  • The reliability of developmental processes, ensured by parallel buffering mechanisms and redundancy, is paramount for evolution.
  • Gastrulation's conserved nature highlights its importance in establishing body plans.
  • The evolutionary trajectory of development may be influenced by inherent reliability mechanisms rather than solely by external selective pressures.

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