Syllabus
1. Life cycle, cell differentiation Genome stability and variability during embryonic development. Chromatin diminution, multiplication, transposition, gene rearrangement during cell differentiation. Somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT).
2. Differential gene activity and affinity of cells during embryonic development Regulation of gene expression and its mechanisms. Genetic and epigenetic factors.
3. Inter-cellular relationships in the embryonic development Endo, auto, para, juxtracrine signaling. Inter-cellular signals, receptors, and their utilization. Neural induction as an example.
4. Gametogenesis Principles of gonocyte differentiation. Structure and molecular basis of gametes and their importance for the development. Maternal influence on the embryonic development mediated by oocyte. Mosaic and conditional development. Gradient of morphogens.
5. Body axis symmetry I Morphogenesis and spatial orientation in amphibians. Inductive interaction as a principle of morphogenetic regulation. Mesodermal, neural, and other inductions. Experimental evidence of inductions and their molecular basis. Mechanisms of anterior-posterior (A-P) and dorso-ventral (D-V) axis symmetry in Xenopus model.
6. Body axis symmetry II Body axis symmetry in fish, birds, and mammals. EVO-DEVO comparison of the A-P and D-V axis origin.
7. Body axis symmetry III A-P and D-V axis symmetry in Drosophila melanogaster. Left-right symmetry in animals.
8. Regeneration and aging Embryonic and tissue specific stem cells, their features and utilization. Types of regeneration, ability of variable tissues and organisms to regenerate. The course is taught with the support of the project reg. number CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/16_015/0002362
Annotation
The aim of the course is to elucidate the principles of the cell differentiation in the ontogenesis of the animal organisms. The main topics are genome stability and variability during embryogenesis, gene activity from the genetic and epigenetic point of view, processing and regulation of gene expression, inter-cellular relationships, propagation of inter-cellular signals, role of the extracellular matrix.
Inductive interaction, morphogenetic field and positional information, hierarchy of genetic activities in morphogenesis, in the formation of the spatial orientation of animal body.