New Strategies in Developmental Biology: In vivo Mutagenesis as a Tool to Dissect Mammalian Development

  • Andreas Zimmer
  • Peter Gruss
Chapter
Part of the NATO ASI Series book series (volume 34)

Abstract

Just over 100 years ago, Roux published an experiment, in which one blastomere of a two cell embryo was destroyed (Roux, 1888). Roux did this experiment to test the, at that time controversial, hypothesis whether development is strictly mosaic and predetermined or whether it is influenced by its environment. Roux recognized that the natural laws underlying the formative processes of development could only be elicited and analyzed by experimentation. Thus, he transformed embryology from a descriptive into an experimental discipline he termed Entwicklungsmechanik (developmental mechanics). Roux noted in his introduction to the new journal Archiv für Entwicklungsmechanik der Organismen (1894): “The extremely diverse structures of multicellular organisms may be traced back to the few modi operandi of cell growth, of cell evanescence, cell division, cell migration, active cell formation, cell elimination, and the qualitative metamorphosis of cells”.

Keywords

Homeobox Gene Homeotic Gene Illegitimate Recombination Homologous Recombination Event Polymerase Chain Reaction Detection Method 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1989

Authors and Affiliations

  • Andreas Zimmer
    • 1
  • Peter Gruss
    • 1
  1. 1.Abteilung Molekulare ZellbiologieMax-Planck Institut für biophysikalische ChemieGöttingenFederal Republic of Germany

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