Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria.
Curr Top Dev Biol. 2011;95:189-213. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385065-2.00006-2.
During the development of multicellular organisms, cell fate specification is followed by the sorting of different cell types into distinct domains from where the different tissues and organs are formed. Cell sorting involves both the segregation of a mixed population of cells with different fates and properties into distinct domains, and the active maintenance of their segregated state. Because of its biological importance and apparent resemblance to fluid segregation in physics, cell sorting was extensively studied by both biologists and physicists over the last decades. Different theories were developed that try to explain cell sorting on the basis of the physical properties of the constituent cells. However, only recently the molecular and cellular mechanisms that control the physical properties driving cell sorting, have begun to be unraveled. In this review, we will provide an overview of different cell-sorting processes in development and discuss how these processes can be explained by the different sorting theories, and how these theories in turn can be connected to the molecular and cellular mechanisms driving these processes.
在多细胞生物的发育过程中，细胞命运的特化之后是不同类型的细胞被分拣到不同的区域，从而形成不同的组织和器官。细胞分拣既包括将具有不同命运和特性的混合细胞群分离到不同的区域，也包括主动维持其分离状态。由于其生物学重要性以及与物理学中流体分离的明显相似性，细胞分拣在过去几十年中受到了生物学家和物理学家的广泛研究。不同的理论被发展起来，试图根据组成细胞的物理特性来解释细胞分拣。然而，直到最近，控制驱动细胞分拣的物理特性的分子和细胞机制才开始被揭示。在这篇综述中，我们将概述发育过程中的不同细胞分拣过程，并讨论这些过程如何可以用不同的分拣理论来解释，以及这些理论反过来如何可以与驱动这些过程的分子和细胞机制联系起来。
