title: Origin of segmentation in the human structure.
abstract: Crystallographic analysis of biological and non-biological minerals does not reveal any significant differences between the two, which is indicative of common crystallization processes. It can be supposed that the human organism is a biocrystalloid in a sense that it is regarded both at the level of the whole organism and individual cells as a composite entity consisting of a crystal-like structure and pericrystalline medium. A similarity can be found between the growing layer of a crystal in the crystal-forming medium and a cell structure with liquid washing it. A mineral organism therefore can be regarded as the active superficial part of a crystal taken together with pericrystalline crystal-forming medium which controls crystal growth and modifies the system depending on the structure of the growing system. Aggregation is one of the fundamental features of minerals as they are found primarily not only as separate objects but also as aggregates, i.e. regular cohesive masses or synmineralogical systems. Ability to aggregation in an orderly way is expressed as self-organization. This feature is inherent not only to compound molecules but also to associates of a higher order. The cell biology has shown that when similar cells touch each other they tend to cohere forming aggregates characteristic of the given cell population. Similar live systems and their components that perform the same function have an ability to integrate and form firstly a conglomerate (colony) and then an organism. Integration explains association of multi-segmented entities into a single organism and the resulting structure would consists of the two groups of segments, i.e. appearance of an organism consisting of two different but of the same type specimens, each of which had different number of segments. Phylogenetically, an early precursor of the man evolved from a simple cell into an integrated multi-segment organism through several stages--initially a simple cell, then a cell colony, then a single-segment organism, then an organism like a concave ball, then a colony of one-segment multicellular organisms and finally a multi-segment multicellular organism. Integration of five- and eight-segment organisms resulted in the formation of a 13-segment precursor organism of man. Segmentation is nothing else but traces of boundaries left following integration of separate multicellular non-segmented specimens with gradual fading of their differences and formation of a new entity in compliance with formation laws.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Transplantology and Artificial Organs, Schukinskaja 1, Moscow 123182, Russia. Ermol@transpl.ru
authors.forename: Alexander E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Ermolenko
authors.forename: Elena A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Perepada
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D019521:Body Patterning / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D014781:Viscera / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology*