In fruit flies.
From ScienceDaily:
The development of wings in fruit flies does not progress synchronously with the organism’s development, according to new research. Instead, it is coordinated with the whole body only at distinct ‘milestones’. This study helps explain how an organism facing environmental and physiological perturbations retains the ability to build correct functional organs and tissues in a proportional adult body.
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Marisa Oliveira concludes: “With this work we propose a new paradigm for thinking about organ-organ and organ-body coordination during development. We suggest that organisms achieve this coordination not by continuous but rather by discrete communication focused on developmental milestones.”
Christen Mirth adds: “The next challenge is to understand the nature of this communication at milestones.”
Indeed.
Will the next “-ome” we hear about be the “communication-ome”? A system that interpenetrates everything, providing feedback, and “knows” when to update with other systems?
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Update: From Ho-D-Ho down at 8:
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News, may I suggest “Communicome”
And for all of the manifold levels of integrated wonders found in the cell (the spliceosome, proteome, genome etc),perhaps we could have an all encompassing –
“There’s-no-place-like-ome.”
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