Abstract
One of the key issues in developmental biology is the question of specification. Specification is the commitment of a group of cells to proceed down a developmental pathway without further extraneous signals. In order identify the development period in which cells have acquired all the necessary information to become committed to a developmental pathway, such as the formation of an organ or tissue, cells are explanted from embryos at various stages and cultured in vitro in a neutral medium. Analysis of the tissues that are formed by the explants allows the investigator to define the developmental period during which specification of a tissue is completed. From these results, one can infer that if cell-to-cell signals are involved in specification of the tissue, they must have occurred earlier than the defined developmental period.
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© 2000 Humana Press Inc.
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Yost, H.J. (2000). Specification of Cardiac Mesenchyme and Heart Morphogenesis In Vitro. In: Tuan, R.S., Lo, C.W. (eds) Developmental Biology Protocols: Volume II. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 136. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-065-9:39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-065-9:39
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-0-89603-853-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-065-0
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