Do plants and animals develop same way?

• Position: Embryos - Brief article

The first three-dimensional images of a live embryo turning itself inside out have been captured by researchers from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). The images--of embryos of a green alga called Volvox--make an ideal test case to understand how a remarkably similar process works in early animal development.

Using fluorescence microscopy to observe the Volvox embryos, the researchers were able to test a mathematical model of morphogenesis--the origin and development of an organism's structure and form--and understand how the shape of cells drives the process of inversion, when the embryo turns itself from a sphere to a mushroom shape and back again.

The processes observed in the Volvox embryo are similar to the process of gastrulation in animal embryos--which biologist Lewis Wolpert calls "the most important event in your life." During gastrulation, the embryo folds inwards into a cup-like shape, forming the primary germ layers that give rise to all the organs in the body. Volvox embryos undergo a similar process, but with an...