Understanding the general rules governing the rate of protein evolution is fundamental to evolutionary biology. However, attempts to address this issue in yeasts and mammals have revealed considerable differences in the relative importance of determinants for protein evolutionary rates. This phenomenon was previously explained by the fact that yeasts and mammals are different in many cellular a...

developmental process. Surveying the mathematical analysis of Woodger and the contribution of experimental embryology to formation (Gestaltung), to segregation, to differentiation, to growth, to polarity and symmetry, and finally to regeneration, we are led through a consideration of the historical character of the organism to the system theory. We read, "We must view the germ as a whole, as a ...

The multicellular green alga Volvox carteri has emerged as a valuable model organism for investigating various aspects of multicellularity and cellular differentiation, photoreception phototaxis, cell division, biogenesis the extracellular matrix morphogenetic movements. While range molecular tools bioinformatics resources have been made available exploring these topics, establishment type-spec...

In Volvox carteri adults, reproductive cells called gonidia are enclosed within a spherical monolayer of biflagellate somatic cells. Embryos must "invert" (turn inside out) to achieve this configuration, however, because at the end of cleavage the gonidia are on the outside and the flagellar ends of all somatic cells point inward. Generation of a bend region adequate to turn the embryo inside o...

The Zuotin-family J protein chaperone GlsA is essential for the asymmetric divisions that establish germ and somatic cell initials during embryogenesis in the green alga Volvox carteri, but it is not known on what cellular process GlsA acts to carry out this function. Most GlsA protein is nuclear, and GlsA possesses two SANT domains, suggesting that GlsA may function as a transcriptional regula...