McMahon D
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1973 Aug;70(8):2396-400. doi: 10.1073/pnas.70.8.2396.
The fate of a cell in a developing organism is a function of its position within the organism. The molecular mechanism that cells use to determine their position and to convert positional information into a form that can be used to regulate the expression of genes is not understood. This paper presents a model in which contacts between complementary molecules on plasma membranes of adjacent cells regulate the concentration of a morphogenetic substance and transmit positional information. This model is described by four equations that, when solved with realistic parameters, demonstrated that this mechanism will produce discrete populations of cells within a few hours from an initially undifferentiated array of cells. The model suggests an explanation for several phenomena that have been observed and suggests experiments to test it and to clearly differentiate it from other models for position determination.
发育中生物体里细胞的命运取决于其在生物体内的位置。细胞用于确定自身位置并将位置信息转化为可用于调控基因表达形式的分子机制尚不清楚。本文提出了一个模型，其中相邻细胞质膜上互补分子之间的接触调节形态发生物质的浓度并传递位置信息。该模型由四个方程描述，当用实际参数求解时，表明这种机制将在几小时内从最初未分化的细胞阵列中产生离散的细胞群体。该模型为已观察到的几种现象提供了解释，并提出了实验来检验它，并将其与其他位置确定模型清楚地区分开来。
