Regulation and function of a novel fibroblast growth factor early response gene in embryonic development and cell differentiation

所有活着的有机体的形成始于单个细胞--卵子的受精。发育生物学的学科试图定义控制单个卵子如何分裂成数十亿个细胞的机制，以及每个细胞如何专门化成适当的组织类型，从而产生一个可识别的、功能齐全的有机体。胚胎中的细胞接收来自周围环境的信号，这些信号告诉它们要做什么，什么时候成长，什么时候专门化，变成什么组织。细胞接收这些信号，然后通过一个电路将这些信号传输到细胞内部，最终到达细胞核，也就是细胞的“大脑”。在接收到信号时，核发出一组指令，这些指令被翻译成适当的动作。

The formation of all living organisms begins with the fertilization of a single cell, the egg. The discipline of developmental biology attempts to define the mechanisms that control how a single egg divides into billions of cells and how each of these cells specializes into the proper tissue type to give rise to a recognizable, fully functional organism. Cells in the embryo receive signals from their surroundings that tell them what to do, when to grow, when to specialize, what tissue to become. Cells pick up these signals, which are then transferred to the inside of the cell through a circuit that ends in the nucleus, the "brain" of the cell. Upon receiving the signal, the nucleus issues a set of instructions that are translated into the appropriate action.