RESEARCHERS at Dundee University have identified a molecule that could play a key role in how cells develop into the building blocks of life.
Their findings could also explain how cells specialise – or differentiate – to become tissues and organs.
The College of Life Sciences team led by Professor Pauline Schaap identified a molecule called cyclic-di-GMP as being the “signal” which can induce differentiation.
She said: “Our work presents the opportunity to fully understand how cells learned to become different from each other in early multicellular organisms. These findings are also remarkable because cyclic-di-GMP was previously only found in bacteria, where it causes them to lose motility and transform into large sticky colonies, known as biofilms.”
The new research has been published in the journal Nature.
