During fertilization in multicellular organisms, a sperm cell fuses with an egg cell to form a zygote. Then, the zygote begins to divide. First, one cell becomes two, then two cells become four, four cells become eight and so on and so forth until a large ball of identical cells is formed. At this point, the ball begins to change. A space forms in the middle, and the cells are pushed inward to form layers. If cell differentiation begins after this phase, what most likely triggers this process?

Respuesta :

Cell differentiation is triggered by a switch from one pattern of gene expression to another.
Each cell type is defined by its particular pattern of regulated gene expression, thus embryonic cells have their own pattern of gene expression. At some point, those embryonic patterns are turned off, and at the same time, tissue-specific genes are turned on. Cellular mechanisms that control these switches involve cell signalling, usually growth factors.