Dequéant Mary-Lee, Pourquié Olivier
Stowers Institute for Medical Research, 1000 East 50th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64110, USA.
Nat Rev Genet. 2008 May;9(5):370-82. doi: 10.1038/nrg2320.
The body axis of vertebrates is composed of a serial repetition of similar anatomical modules that are called segments or metameres. This particular mode of organization is especially conspicuous at the level of the periodic arrangement of vertebrae in the spine. The segmental pattern is established during embryogenesis when the somites--the embryonic segments of vertebrates--are rhythmically produced from the paraxial mesoderm. This process involves the segmentation clock, which is a travelling oscillator that interacts with a maturation wave called the wavefront to produce the periodic series of somites. Here, we review our current understanding of the segmentation process in vertebrates.
脊椎动物的身体轴由一系列重复的相似解剖模块组成，这些模块被称为体节或分节。这种特殊的组织模式在脊柱椎骨的周期性排列层面尤为明显。分节模式在胚胎发育过程中建立，此时体节（脊椎动物的胚胎节段）从近轴中胚层有节奏地产生。这个过程涉及分节时钟，它是一个移动的振荡器，与一个称为波前的成熟波相互作用，以产生体节的周期性序列。在这里，我们回顾了目前对脊椎动物分节过程的理解。
