At Life's Most Sensitive Stage, Embryos Cope W...( The vast majority of living organisms s...)

The vast majority of living organisms start out life in the soil or the sea as embryos unprotected by a womb or a nest. The fragile embryos suffer toxic insults, broiling heat and damage to the DNA that commands their development, yet somehow a few manage to survive and grow to adulthood. On Feb. 17, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Philadelphia, a group of scientists met in the first scientific symposium to look at how animals and plants cope with stress in their embryonic stages.

"We know surprisingly little at the cellular and molecular level about how embryos cope with their environments, yet the embryo is the most fragile stage in the life cycle, and its survival is critical for sustaining the life of a species," said David Epel, a professor of biology at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. Epel is co-organizer of the AAAS session with James Clegg, a professor of biology at the University of California-Davis' Bodega Marine Laboratory.

Studies of embryos under stress may shed light on a range of biological questions, including how drug resistance evolves, which species are most likely to be vulnerable to global climate change, and how ultraviolet light from the sun may contribute to the apparent worldwide decline in frog populations. Among the participants in the symposium were Clegg, who presented an overview of the topic; Epel, who described coping strategies that embryos use to repel toxins, and Susan Brawley of the University of Maine, who described strategies that marine algae use for reproductive success. Susan Lindquist of the University of Chicago and Gretchen Hofmann, of the University of New Mexico-Albuquerque, both discussed how embryos balance the good and bad effect of proteins that protect from heat shock. Roger Pedersen of the University of California-San Francisco and Joseph M. Kiesecker of Yale described the influence of DNA rep
'"/>

Contact: Janet Basu
basu@stanford.edu
(650) 723-7582
Stanford University
12-Feb-1998

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Related biology news :

1. Butterflies Help Reveal The Source Of Lifes Little Luxuries
2. New Fluorescence Technique For Ultra-Sensitive Enzyme Characterization Developed - Screening Catalytic Activity At The Single-Molecule Level
3. Urbanized Watersheds More Sensitive To Climate Change
4. Embryos that implant in uterus late prove more likely to die in first weeks of pregnancy
5. First Dinosaur Embryo Skin Discovered -- Unhatched Embryos Are First Ever Found Of Giant-Plant Eating Dinosaurs
6. Who Needs Flowers? Transgenic Plants Sprout Embryos On Leaves
7. Stress hormones and heart failure
8. Stressed intestine can give rise to food allergy
9. Stress, infertility linked in study by Magee-Womens Research Institute
10. Stress delays puberty
11. Stressed-out mice offer clues to depression, anxiety, anorexia