Evidence that disproves a long-standing assumption about fish development gives insight into evolution of skeletons
Wednesday, August 28, 2013 - 06:30
in Biology & Nature
A Singapore-based research team has used fluorescent labeling of embryonic cell populations to pinpoint the origin of scales and fins in modern-day fish. These tissues are evolutionary relics of the first skeletons and were widely assumed to originate from an embryonic cell population known as the 'trunk neural crest'. Now, research led by Tom Carney of the A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology has shown that scales and fins actually develop from a cell population called the mesoderm.