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From cell differentiation to the cell cycle: how failing in biochemistry led to success in morphology

Nature Cell Biology volume 11, page 535 (2009)Cite this article

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When I was a student at Kyoto University in the early 1950s, experimental morphology of animal development, more familiarly known to us as 'Entwicklungsmechanik', became my favourite area of biology. It aimed to analyse causal relations in developmental processes using the simple techniques of microsurgery and histological observation, and it explained development using abstract concepts such as 'organizer' and 'morphogenetic field'. I was also captivated by the rising tide of chemical embryology promulgated by Jean Brachet's L'Embryologie Chimique (Masson et Cie, 1947), which cited a number of reports on the effects of various chemicals on development, as well as on histochemical studies of embryos. I was particularly interested in the remarkable effects of lithium ions on sea urchin and amphibian development. Consequently, I chose to study the effects of lithium on cell differentiation in amphibian embryos for my PhD, with the hope of discovering its molecular mechanism.

Chemical embryology appeared to be technically enriched by the advent of new techniques including fractionating cell organelles by centrifugation and analysing proteins by chromatography and gel electrophoresis. We were also encouraged to formulate molecular theories of development by learning the operon hypothesis of gene expression in bacteria. I was deeply impressed by Clement L. Markert's paper Chemical Concepts of Cellular Differentiation presented in A Symposium on Chemical Basis of Development (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1958). In this paper, based on his research in lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) isoenzymes, Markert hypothesized that cell differentiation results from differential gene activation by nucleocytoplasmic interactions.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks S. S. Desser and M. J. Ringuette for their valuable suggestions and editorial comments.

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  1. Yoshio Masui is Professor Emeritus in The Department of Cell and System Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G5, Canada masui@rogers.com,

    Yoshio Masui

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Masui, Y. From cell differentiation to the cell cycle: how failing in biochemistry led to success in morphology. Nat Cell Biol 11, 535 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb0509-535

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