TLS Online TPP Program

#Question id: 7109


What observation might explain how somites originally become specified to form structures appropriate to their position along the antero-posterior axis?

#Unit 5. Developmental Biology
  1. If pre-somitic mesoderm is rotated, the somites form in a reversed order.
  2. Somites in the anterior of the embryo form before somites in the more posterior regions.
  3. A gradient of retinoic acid exists that emanates both anteriorly and posteriorly from the somites.
  4. Periodic waves of c-hairy1 are expressed in the presomitic mesoderm, such that cells in the more anterior somites will have been exposed to fewer waves of c-hairy1 than the cells in more posterior somites.