Talk:Cellular differentiation

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This article was the MCB Collaboration of the Month for the month of January 2008.

For more details, see the MCB Collaboration of the Month history.

Thanks Cordyph and mav --adam

Grading

Anyone object if I split the grading section into its own page? --Arcadian 03:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Overview section

Some of the HTML displays improperly at the bottom of the page looking like this:

Navbox |name = Stem cells | groupstyle = background-color: #F8BFF8;

the entire overview section is plagiarized from the cited source. Can someone fix this? I don't have time right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.111.116.145 (talk) 23:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please remove the stuff under ((Sources))? I tried, but it does not show in my edit page. thanks Weeddude (talk) 16:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Someone vandalized the Stem cell template. It couldn't be fixed from this page. Forluvoft (talk) 16:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merging

I've suggested to merge de-differentiation with cellular differentiation. I was also thinking that the article on Cell Fate Determination may also be a good article to merge here since the ideas are almost the same. Suggestions? AkashAD (talk) 18:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, go ahead and merge all three. --JWSchmidt (talk) 01:15, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

de-differentiation has been merged. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mechanism...

Can someone please add an explanation of how and why differentiation occurs. That's what I came here looking for. Thanks. Amit@Talk 19:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are correct, this is a big hole in the article. Part of the problem is that there is very active research into the mechanisms of cell differentiation and one major conclusion that can be drawn from that research program is that very many mechanisms for control of cell differentiation have been invented during the past billion years....and many of the good ones continue to be used. Still, it is worth having an introduction to what has been learned so far. For a typical textbook approach, see: Cell-Type Specification in Animals
--JWSchmidt (talk) 20:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There also is little coordination of findings or even approaches between study of differentiation in plants, insects, and mammals, which is where most of the research occurs. Even someone very intimately familiar with one of these three areas may be completely unaware of advances in the other two. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT Question— What of the work of Robert O. Becker, exploring dedifferentiation in his 1998 work The Body Electric? "The electric field changes turned out to be caused by currents in the nerves, and the limb regeneration occurred from red blood cells, which first dedifferentiated into unspecialized cells, and then differentiated into the new cells needed." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.53.36.67 (talk) 00:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article organization

I've been thinking about how to organize this article. The whole subject seems a bit chaotic, especially considering that mammals, plants, insects, etc. all have different ways of doing things (as mentioned above). But I think, fundamentally, to answer the question of cellular differentiation you must answer the following questions:

How does a cell know what type it is?

(chromatin structure, DNA modifications, other forms of epigenetics, ???)

How does a cell know what other types it can become?

(maybe the same as above? do we even know???)

How does a cell know what cell type to become and when?

(cell-cell communication, ???)

How does a cell actually differentiate?

(mechanisms of gene regulation, ???)

Maybe this can help organize the article. Other thoughts? Forluvoft (talk) 16:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Single Celled Organisms

Would it be appropriate to include a brief discussion of cellular differentiation in single celled critters? I know many microbes have multiple life stages with drastically different morphologies and behaviors (such as my favorite, the amobeobo-flagellate naegleria). As it stands, this article only addresses multicellular organisms. Fritzlaylin (talk) 22:10, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good! Forluvoft (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But differentiation by definition is change in the cells of a single organism, not changes between different stages. That's not to say there isn't relevant material (such as you've proposed), just a caution that not all such changes qualify as differentiation. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]