Steele Robert E
Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA 92627-1700, USA.
Dev Biol. 2002 Aug 15;248(2):199-219. doi: 10.1006/dbio.2002.0744.
Developmental processes in multicellular animals depend on an array of signal transduction pathways. Studies of model organisms have identified a number of such pathways and dissected them in detail. However, these model organisms are all bilaterians. Investigations of the roles of signal transduction pathways in the early-diverging metazoan Hydra have revealed that a number of the well-known developmental signaling pathways were already in place in the last common ancestor of Hydra and bilaterians. In addition to these shared pathways, it appears that developmental processes in Hydra make use of pathways involving a variety of peptides. Such pathways have not yet been identified as developmental regulators in more recently diverged animals. In this review I will summarize work to date on developmental signaling pathways in Hydra and discuss the future directions in which such work will need to proceed to realize the potential that lies in this simple animal.
多细胞动物的发育过程依赖于一系列信号转导途径。对模式生物的研究已经鉴定出许多这样的途径，并对其进行了详细剖析。然而，这些模式生物都是两侧对称动物。对早期分化的后生动物水螅中信号转导途径作用的研究表明，许多著名的发育信号途径在水螅和两侧对称动物的最后一个共同祖先中就已经存在。除了这些共享途径外，水螅的发育过程似乎还利用了涉及多种肽的途径。在分化程度更高的动物中，此类途径尚未被鉴定为发育调节因子。在这篇综述中，我将总结迄今为止关于水螅发育信号途径的研究工作，并讨论此类工作未来需要朝着哪些方向推进，以挖掘这种简单动物的潜力。
