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Self-organization in embryonic development: myth and reality

S. Newman

Published 2021 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

Self-organization” has become a watchword in developmental biology, characterizing observations in which embryonic or induced stem cells derived from animals replicate morphological steps and outcomes seen in intact embryos. While the term was introduced in the 18th century by the philosopher Immanuel Kant to describe the goaldirected properties of living systems, it came into modern use for non-living materials in which complex forms and patterns emerge through dynamical, energy-expending physical processes. What is the relationship among these uses of the term? While multicellular forms arose dozens of times from single-celled organisms, only some of these undergo development, and not all developmental processes are self-organizing. The evolution of the animals (metazoans) from unicellular holozoans was accompanied by the addition of novel gene products which mediated the constitution the resulting cell clusters as liquid-, liquid crystal-, and solid-like materials with versatile morphogenetic propensities. Such materials variously exhibited multilayering, lumen formation and elongation, echoing the selforganizing properties of nonliving matter, “generic” based on such parallels, though with biologically based subunit properties and modes of interaction. These effects provided evolutionary starting points and templates of embryonic forms and morphological motifs of diverse metazoan lineages. Embryos and organ primordia of present-day animal species continue to generate forms that resemble the outcomes of these physical effects. Their development, however, employs overdetermined, highly evolved mechanisms that are often disconnected from their originating processes. Using the examples of gastrulation,

PUBLICATION RECORD

  • Publication year

    2021

  • Venue

    Unknown venue

  • Publication date

    2021-08-01

  • Fields of study

    Biology, Philosophy

  • Identifiers
    arXiv 2108.00532
  • External record

    Open on Semantic Scholar

  • Source metadata

    Semantic Scholar

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