Help: Beginning of Human Life

[scytale]

What provides the original zygote the instructions to develop into a human? Is it just the DNA or is there something else involved?

[kotoreru]

Ooooh no....what a question. DNA is what makes us what species we are.

[MrMistery]

not really. Wikipedia or google "cytoplasmic determinants"

[scytale]

I'm having trouble finding anything good on cytoplasmic determinants. Could you either give me a good website or give me some sort of explanation?

[MrMistery]

See here:
http://biology.kenyon.edu/courses/biol1 ... er_11.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_specification
(unfortunately not a free article) http://molehr.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co ... act/4/1/41
http://worms.zoology.wisc.edu/frogs/cle ... ml#cytodet
http://www.tracy.k12.ca.us/thsadvbio/pp ... nants3.ppt

Sorry i can't it explain it myself right now but I MUST go to bed. I can't even walk from fatigue..

[scytale]

thanks for the links.

what in its makeup differentiates a totipotent cell from a non-totipotent cell?

[MrMistery]

Good question. No simple answer really. A cell that has lost its totipotence has begun the process of determination. It has to do with gene expression. This is a delicate subject because some cells can regain their totipotence...

[mith]

A nobel prize question

[MrMistery]

Not quite. I think that we do know how this occurs. It's just that the answer takes a 5-volume book

[scytale]

how would cells regain their totipotency?

[MrMistery]

i told you, there is no simple answer to this. pick up a book on genetics and development and start reading. After many many hours of reading you will probably understand it.