Grunz H
Department of Zoophysiology, Universität Essen, Germany.
Int J Dev Biol. 2001;45(1):39-50.
After the Hans Spemann and Hilde Mangold discovery of the importance of the dorsal blastopore lip for axis formation in the early embryo (Nobelprize for Spemann, 1935), the scientific community tried in a goldrush-like manner to find the inducing factors responsible for the programming of early embyronic determination and differentiation. The slow progress towards a solution of this problem caused a fading of interest on behalf of most laboratories. This article describes the activities of a few laboratories in Finland, Japan and Germany, which continued their studies despite tremendous experimental difficulties. Finally only Heinz Tiedemann's group in Berlin was the first which could isolate a mesoderm/endoderm inducing factor in highly purified form, the so-called vegetalizing factor, now known as activin. Furthermore this article describes the identification of neuralizing factors like Chordin, Cerberus and Dickkopf in the zone of the Spemann-Mangold organizer. The finding that BMP-4 acts as an antagonist to these factors located on the dorsal side led to a new understanding of the mechanisms of action of inducing (neuralizing) factors and early embryonic pattern formation. Moreover, the observations that closely related genes and their products were also found in Drosophila, Zebrafish, Mice and Human were the basis for new concepts of evolutionary mechanisms (dorsal/ventral and anterior/posterior polarity or conserved processes in eye-development of all 7 animal phyla).
在汉斯·施佩曼和希尔德·曼戈尔德发现背侧胚孔唇在早期胚胎轴形成中的重要性之后（施佩曼于1935年获得诺贝尔奖），科学界以淘金热般的方式试图找出负责早期胚胎决定和分化编程的诱导因子。在解决这个问题上进展缓慢，导致大多数实验室的兴趣逐渐消退。本文描述了芬兰、日本和德国的一些实验室的活动，尽管面临巨大的实验困难，他们仍继续进行研究。最终，只有柏林的海因茨·蒂德曼小组率先以高度纯化的形式分离出一种中胚层/内胚层诱导因子，即所谓的植物化因子，现在称为激活素。此外，本文还描述了在施佩曼 - 曼戈尔德组织者区域中对神经化因子如脊索蛋白、头蛋白和迪克kopf的鉴定。发现BMP - 4作为位于背侧的这些因子的拮抗剂，这导致了对诱导（神经化）因子作用机制和早期胚胎模式形成的新理解。此外，在果蝇、斑马鱼、小鼠和人类中也发现了密切相关的基因及其产物，这些观察结果是进化机制新概念（所有7个动物门的背/腹和前/后极性或眼睛发育中的保守过程）的基础。
