title: Evolvability of cell specification mechanisms.
abstract: The architecture of gene action during development is relevant to phenotypic evolution as it links genotype to morphological phenotype. Analysis of development at the level of cell fate specification mechanisms illuminates some of the properties of developmental evolution. In this article, we first review examples of evolutionary change in mechanisms of cell fate specification, with an emphasis on evolution in the dependence on inductive signaling and on evolution of the mechanisms that result in spatial asymmetries. We then focus on properties of development that bias possible phenotypic change and present how the distribution of phenotypes that are available by mutational change of the starting genotype can be experimentally tested by systematic mutagenesis. We finally discuss ways in which selection pressures on phenotypes can be inferred from a comparison of the phenotypic spectrum found on mutation with that found in the wild.
authors.affiliation: Institut Jacques Monod, CNRS-Universités Paris 6 & 7, 75251 Paris cedex 05, France. felix@ijm.jussieu.fr
authors.forename: Marie-Anne
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Félix
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Barrière
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D019070:Cell Lineage; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D010641:Phenotype