MRC-National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2013 Aug;23(4):423-8. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2013.04.003. Epub 2013 May 29.
The spatial organization of cell fates in developing tissues often involves the control of transcriptional networks by morphogen gradients. A well-studied example of this is the Sonic-hedgehog (Shh) controlled pattern of neuronal subtype differentiation in the vertebrate neural tube. Here we discuss recent studies involving genome wide analyses, functional experiments and theoretical models that have begun to characterise the molecular logic by which neural cells interpret Shh signalling. The view that emerges from this work is that cell identity results from the combined input of Shh signalling, uniformly expressed neural factors and the cross-regulatory network of downstream Shh target genes. A similar logic is also likely to underpin the patterning of many developing tissues.
在发育组织中，细胞命运的空间组织通常涉及形态发生梯度对转录网络的控制。脊椎动物神经管中 Sonic-hedgehog（Shh）控制神经元亚型分化的模式就是一个很好的例子。在这里，我们讨论了最近涉及全基因组分析、功能实验和理论模型的研究，这些研究开始描述神经细胞解释 Shh 信号的分子逻辑。从这项工作中得出的观点是，细胞身份是由 Shh 信号的综合输入、均匀表达的神经因子以及下游 Shh 靶基因的交叉调节网络共同决定的。类似的逻辑也可能是许多发育组织模式形成的基础。
