Metarandom states push cell fate

Editorial: Cell Fate

The complexity and plasticity of cell fate determination has intrigued cell and developmental biologists for decades. Cellular differentiation is the acquisition of specialized characteristics; which is intimately associated with changes in gene expression, alterations of chromatin, and changes in nuclear architecture. Differentiating tissues exhibit a progressive restriction of cellular plasti...

Hermaphrodite cell-fate specification.

There are two sexes in C. elegans, hermaphrodite and male. While there are many sex-specific differences between males and hermaphrodites that affect most tissues, the basic body plan and many of its structures are identical. However, most structures required for mating or reproduction are sexually dimorphic and are generated by sex-specific cell lineages. Thus to understand cell fate specifica...

Stochasticity and cell fate.

Fundamental to living cells is the capacity to differentiate into subtypes with specialized attributes. Understanding the way cells acquire their fates is a major challenge in developmental biology. How cells adopt a particular fate is usually thought of as being deterministic, and in the large majority of cases it is. That is, cells acquire their fate by virtue of their lineage or their proxim...

Shaping the cell fate.

Calcium and Cell Fate.

The 6th European Calcium Society (ECS) workshop “Calcium and Cell Fate” held in Seillac (France) on June 21–24, 2015 attracted 64 scientists including 11 PhD students from 16 different countries worldwide (Austria, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and USA). The workshop took place in the charming environment of...