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Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor Michael Whitaker
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The onset of development in most species studied is triggered by one of the largest and longest calcium transients known to us. It is the most studied and best understood aspect of the calcium signals that accompany and control development. Its properties and mechanisms demonstrate what embryos are capable of and thus how the less-understood calcium signals later in development may be generated. The downstream targets of the fertilization calcium signal have also been identified, providing some pointers to the probable targets of calcium signals further on in the process of development.In one species or another, the fertilization calcium signal involves all the known calcium-releasing second messengers and many of the known calcium-signalling mechanisms. These calcium signals also usually take the form of a propagating calcium wave or waves.Fertilization causes the cell cycle to resume, and therefore fertilization signals are cell-cycle signals. In some early embryonic cell cycles, calcium signals also control the progress through each cell cycle, controlling mitosis.Studies of these early embryonic calcium-signalling mechanisms provide a background to the calcium-signalling events discussed in the articles in this issue. © 2008 The Royal Society.
Author(s): Whitaker M
Publication type: Review
Publication status: Published
Journal: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Year: 2008
Volume: 363
Issue: 1495
Pages: 1401-1418
ISSN (print): 0962-8452
ISSN (electronic): 1471-2954
Publisher: The Royal Society Publishing
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.2259
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2008.2259
PubMed id: 18263556
