Inter-cellular Interactions and Patterns: Vertebrate Development and Embryonic Stem Cells

TL;DR

This paper reviews how embryonic stem cell colonies serve as a model system to understand the complex inter-cellular interactions and regulatory principles underlying vertebrate development and embryogenesis.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative perspective on ESC colonies as a platform to uncover the multi-layered regulation of embryonic self-organization.

Findings

ESC colonies are ideal for studying developmental regulation

Quantitative analysis reveals principles of self-organization

Framework aids understanding of vertebrate embryogenesis

Abstract

Development from egg to embryo to adult is a fascinating instance of biological self-organization for which genetics has supplied us with a parts list. It remains to find the principles organizing the assembly of those parts. In the last decade embryonic stem cells (ESC) have provided the material from which to build the mammalian embryo. This review, for a quantitative audience, explains why colonies of ESC are an ideal system with which to peal back the multiple layers of regulation that make embryonic development such a robust process. It formed the basis of a presentation at the 27th Solvay Conference on the Physics of Living Matter 2017 edited by Boris Shraiman.