ERC Starting Grant · 2018
Evolution of cell fate specification modes in spiral cleavage
Spiral cleavage is a highly stereotypical early embryonic program, and the ancestral, defining feature to Spiralia, a major phylogenetic clade including almost half of the animal phyla. Remarkably, spiral-cleaving embryos specify homologous cell fates (e.g. the progenitor cell of posterodorsal structures) conditionally –via cell interactions– or autonomously –via segregation of maternal inputs. This variation occurs naturally, even between closely related species, and has been related to the precocious formation of adult characters (adultation) in larvae of autonomous spiral-cleaving species. How spiralian lineages repeatedly shifted between these two cell fate specification modes is…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.