Developmental Biology: Historical Perspectives and Basic Concept

Introduction:-

As we studying the development of human; there are two familiar words you may have come across about it as growth and development in your former studies.

       In considering the multicellular organism the process of growth and development are two different things .Each of them are dependable in nature with each other.Growth refers to size , length,breadth,weight,shape etc,whereas development refers to the proper function of particular organ at particular time i.e specificity will assign to a certain organ for their certain function,but without growth it can not b happen.Growth also depends upon development.

        Lets an example ;two persons named as ‘A’ and ‘B’ are in same age group(5years) but ‘A’ is taller than ‘B’;here we can not expect more or high (I.Q) level in case of A than B;it is simply the result of growth and both have approximately same brain development,there is another side of observation can be obtained that the ‘B’ may be more I.Q than ‘A’ as a result of proper development of brain in ‘B’.So we can not link growth and development as one thing but can be studies as parallel phenomena .
‘Developmental Biology’ moreover combine the two process which play a vital role in development of an oraganism.Growth is restricted to certain time or age whereas development is a lifelong process.

History of Developmental Biology:-

        Early philosopher wondering about the knowledge of development of multicellular organism , though it was a mystery till the Aristotle’s theory called  ‘epigenesis’ came into the picture i.e formation of organism from egg cell.
Therefore Aristotle was the first embryologist who carried out the experiment and noted down the experience in 3 weeks incubation periods of birds (Scott F.Gilbert, Developmental Biology,second edition) but still the development process was a puzzle behind the knowledge of developmental biology.

    Everyone wondering to acquire the knowledge about the developmental process of multicellular organism though it is a slow and steady process leading to the complexity .
As every multicellular organism developed from a single celled zygote then result the embryo by equational division of zygote in 2,4,6,8… and so on manner;and this phenomenon are under the embryological perspective,but by considering the embryology the knowledge will be confined to that extent as gamete formation and till the formation of foetus (en.m.wikipedia.org). Therefore the concept came as developmental biology ; the development process is not confined or restricted to birth rather continues till death.Because day by day old cell degenerate and new cell develop and carried out the cellular activities for smoother continuation of life,like blood cell formation; cell of epidermis too regenerate when old cell worn-out .It was very known by Karl Ernst Von Baer ‘Father of modern embryology’.

Phases of Development:-

           Human development includes the various stages which are worth noting to reveal the actual pattern of development and the following are some basic pattern of development.

  1. Gametogenesis: Gametogenesis is the process of formation of gamete i.e sperm and ovum in male and female respectively.
  2. Fertilization: Fertilization is the phenomena of fusion of ovum and sperm to form zygote.It is a single diploid cell,during fertilization only nucleus will enter into the ovum.
  3. Cleavage: The first and foremost role of zygote is dividing as a result of which lots of new cells form,so increase in cell number take place.
  4. Blastulation: During blastulation,the mass of cells form a hollow ball.
  5. Differentiation: In the process of differentiation cell get differentiated and forms the cavities,the inner cell layer is called inner cell mass and outside cell layer is called trophoblast.The inner cell mass developed into three germ layer and outer trophoblast forms placenta.The 3 germ layer are ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm which forms the respective tissues.
  6. Organogenesis: The formation of different vital organ along with the essential organ from the different germinal layers.Ectoderm produce its own nature of organ which is different from endoderm and mesoderm and vice-versa.Different predetermined organs are produce from different germ layers.
  7. Metamorphosis: It is generally found in lower grade animals.Mostly found in invertebrates.Due to make the animal more efficient to adapt with environment,metamorphosis occurs.Metamorphosis is the process of formation of adult organism from sexually and physiologically immature organism.

Differentiation and Growth:-

                    

        First of all by taking the process of differentiation into consideration;we can explain it as a process of diversification of single cell into numerous cell types.A single celled zygote can divides and then form numerous cells like neurons,muscle cells,bone cells,blood cells etc in the process bof differentiation and this follows a complex phenomena to produce such cells.Genetic factor play a vital role in differentiation process.

Differentiation is irreversible process. The differentiation leads to assigning a particular works for a particular cell type,by the process of differentiation specificity will be arises and increase in shape and size of the cell form the tissue and ultimately organ and it is because of the process of growth ,that every specific function thought to be happen only when organ function is carried out and that organ should growth at its particular shape and size to carried out particular work.So growth is also essential in addition to the differentiation.

Differential gene expression:-

           As the name shown  that differential gene expression describe the different expression of genes from each other. As we know that from a single celled zygote different cell types will form and ultimately a whole organism will develop,but some times it is impossible to belive that from single celled zygote by the process of mitotic division cell number increases and each cell have undergoes division and produce a groups of similar cells and form a specific tissue,another cells produce another tissue,how can it be possible that evolving from a same zygote a group of cells produce one type of tissue and another group of cells produce another tissue.Well,it is the role of differential gene expression.
Every cells produced from zygote having the identical genomes i.e the DNAs content are same.Each DNA have some muted or unexpressed region ,which may be expressed in any situation according to environmental factors and some specific region of DNA is responsible for specific proteins.So as per concern of expression,not every genes of each cells express in same way i.e in some cells some part is express and some part is silent like that for the respective part for other cell it may be opposite or different and it leads to differential expression of genes of different different regions of DNAs and ultimately leads to formation of different types of tissues,organ,organ system progressively.

Cell-Cell Interaction:-

   As in earlier concept of differential gene expression we revealed that the different forms of organs are produced due to the different expression of genes in a cell and that varies from cell to cell though they produced from a single celled zygote and we also interprete that the expression is some how depends upon some factors also like it’s environment.Here the cell-cell interaction or communication is such type of factors which causes the changing of behaviour of one cell by another cell.Here behaviour in the sense changing the shape,rate of division,fate map and this interaction of closely placed cells having different properties called proximate interaction or induction.
          The group of cells or tissue which change the cellular behaviour of another tissue is called inducer and which receives the signal from inducer is called responder.
          The process is tissues specific in nature i.e for example if the optic vesicle of Xenopus laevis (an African crawled frog ) is placed from where it normally forms,underneath the head ectoderm to form lens tissue.However ,if the optic vesicle is placed beneath ectoderm in the flank or abdomen of the same organism that ectoderm will not be able to respond.Only the head ectoderm is competent to respond to the signals from the optic vesicles by producing lens (Gilbert S.F 6th edition, (2017), Developmental Biology,USA.The ability of a responder tissue to a specific inductive signal is called competence.
                            Due to this interaction 3 new concept has developed i.e instructive or raciprocal induction, instructive interaction,permissive interaction.
  1. The reciprocal induction is direct opposite to inductive interaction where the responder act as inducer and inducing tissue act as respondent
  2. In instructive interaction certain cells are couldn’t show their behaviour without the signal of inducing cells and does not differentiate .
  3. The third type of interaction is permissive i.e some cell contain all the potentiality to express but required the condition or permission to express in thier own way.

12 Comments to “Developmental Biology: Historical Perspectives and Basic Concept”

  1. Good effort..very informative 👍👍

  2. Good . Very impressing

  3. Are wahhh… Proud of you… Very impressive lecture 👍

  4. Simple and useful👏👏

  5. Very useful 🥰

  6. Very useful and informative …well done bro����

  7. this is so good bhai

  8. Very useful for all

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *