title: How cells know where they are.
abstract: Development, regeneration, and even day-to-day physiology require plant and animal cells to make decisions based on their locations. The principles by which cells may do this are deceptively straightforward. But when reliability needs to be high--as often occurs during development--successful strategies tend to be anything but simple. Increasingly, the challenge facing biologists is to relate the diverse diffusible molecules, control circuits, and gene regulatory networks that help cells know where they are to the varied, sometimes stringent, constraints imposed by the need for real-world precision and accuracy.
authors: Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, and Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. adlander@uci.edu
authors: Arthur D
authors: AD
authors: Lander
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002468:Cell Physiological Phenomena; D004058:Diffusion; D047108:Embryonic Development; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D009024:Morphogenesis; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins