Developmental Biology
Programmed cell death is an integral part of embryonic development.
09.02.2017
Excerpt from LMU press release from February 9, 2017:
Life support for precursor cells
Programmed cell death – apoptosis – is a fundamental and tightly regulated process that occurs in all higher organisms. It is, for example, essential for normal embryonic development, during which superfluous cells must be disposed of in an orderly fashion. Barbara Conradt (Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at LMU) and her team have been studying the role of apoptosis during embryogenesis in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a well-established experimental model. They have now shown that small fragments of RNA, so-called microRNAs, have a crucial function in the regulation of apoptosis in this system – they are responsible for the preservation of the progenitors of the nervous system. The new study appears in the journal Genes and Development.