|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
| Home Help Feedback Subscriptions Archive Search Table of Contents | ||||
First published online October 22, 2003
doi: 10.1242/10.1242/dev.00657
BOOK REVIEW |
The Rockefeller University, New York, USA
* e-mail: brvnlou{at}rockefeller.edu
All animals, including humans, begin life as a single cell. During the first few hours of development, that initial cell and its progeny make a series of crucial decisions that ultimately lead to the formation of organs and structures of the adult organism. The principal aim of developmental biology is to understand how these amazing processes occur.
In the past two decades, the explosion of information and novel techniques in molecular biology and genetics has armed modern embryologists with powerful tools with which to dissect the molecular basis of development. Recent studies have illustrated a remarkable conservation of molecular and cellular developmental strategies among embryos of different species. The future of developmental biology therefore relies on a comparative approach, especially in the post-genome era.
Molecular Principles of Animal Development stands perfectly within this context. Martinez Arias and Stewart's rationale is to approach developmental biology, primarily from a molecular perspective. Thus far, traditional textbooks have begun with a description of developmental processes (such as axis formation, gastrulation and organogenesis) in different model systems. Molecular explanations were subsequently provided along the way. In Molecular Principles of Developmental Biology, however, molecules take center stage rather than the embryo or its constituent parts.
The book is split into three sections. After a general introduction about
the fundamental questions of developmental biology over the past few
centuries, chapters 2-5 provide a basic course of molecular biology surveying
topics such as transcription, signaling molecules and receptors, signaling
pathways, and networks. These four chapters should give the reader the tools
to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying developmental events. It is
hard to predict, however, if this general overview is rigorous enough to teach
a molecular understanding of development to a reader lacking any previous
background in molecular biology or genetics. The next section, chapters 6-9,
describes the integration of basic molecular mechanisms into cellular and
developmental processes such as cell adhesion, polarity, movement, cell
divisions or cell death. Finally, the last three chapters focus on selected
topics: how specific cell types are generated (e.g. myogenesis, neurogenesis);
and then how specific cell types become organized in two- or three-dimensional
patterns (e.g. development of the C. elegans vulva, vertebrate limb
development, patterning and growth of the Drosophila
wing).
|
In conclusion, this textbook should be considered as a companion to more traditional texts about developmental biology, and it is clearly useful for advanced graduate students and teachers who already have a background of embryology. Readers will further benefit from the figures and suggested readings. Ultimately, however, we should leave the embryo on the center stage and build up the molecular networks around it. What matters at the end, is not only the understanding of the molecular components, but the overall strategies that an embryo uses to guide its own development.
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati 
Twitter What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
