European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Barcelona, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain; Collaboration for joint PhD degree between EMBL and Heidelberg University, Faculty of Biosciences, Heidelberg, Germany. Electronic address: https://twitter.com/@JorgeLazaroF.
European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Barcelona, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2024 Feb;84:102149. doi: 10.1016/j.gde.2023.102149. Epub 2024 Jan 9.
The rate of development is highly variable across animal species. However, the mechanisms regulating developmental tempo have remained elusive due to difficulties in performing direct interspecies comparisons. Here, we discuss how pluripotent stem cell-based models of development can be used to investigate cell- and tissue-autonomous temporal processes. These systems enable quantitative comparisons of different animal species under similar experimental conditions. Moreover, the constantly growing stem cell zoo collection allows the extension of developmental studies to a great number of unconventional species. We argue that the stem cell zoo constitutes a powerful platform to perform comparative studies of developmental tempo, as well as to study other forms of biological time control such as species-specific lifespan, heart rate, and circadian clocks.
发育速率在动物物种间具有高度可变性。然而，由于进行直接的种间比较存在困难，调节发育速度的机制仍然难以捉摸。在这里，我们讨论了基于多能干细胞的发育模型如何用于研究细胞和组织自主的时间进程。这些系统使在相似的实验条件下对不同动物物种进行定量比较成为可能。此外，不断增长的干细胞动物园集合使对大量非传统物种的发育研究得以扩展。我们认为，干细胞动物园是进行发育速度比较研究以及研究其他形式的生物时间控制（如特定物种的寿命、心率和生物钟）的强大平台。
