07067 - Development Biology

Academic Year 2008/2009

  • Docente: Carlo Taddei
  • Credits: 5
  • SSD: BIO/06
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Biological sciences (cod. 0091)

Learning outcomes

The purpose of this course is to acquaint the students with the byological differentiation, by studiyng the embryogenesis in different model organisms of inverebrates and vertebrates, and with the different and integrated experimental approaches.

Course contents

Fertilization: structure of gametes, cellular and molecular bases of egg-sperm recognition, of polyspermy prevention and activation of egg metabolism. Early development (cleavage and gastrulation) in different animal models. Autonomous and conditional specification of the fate of blastomers (mosaic and regulative type of development) experiments in sea urchin and tunicates. The cell lineage in c.elegans. Early Anphibian development, the Spemann organizer and the origin and molecular biology of the Nieuwkoop center. The mesoderm formation and patterning. The Hox code in the anterior-posterior patterning. The neural tube and the role of the neural crest in the different regions of the vertebrate body. The cranial neural crest and the organization of the head in vertegrates. The development of limbs in vertebrates and their regeneration in anphibians. Drosophila as a model for an interdisciplinar approach to developmental biology: oogenesis, cleavage, gastrulation and early morphogenesis. Genes controlling the body pattern: maternal, segmentation and the homeotic selector genes.

Readings/Bibliography

Biologia dello Sviluppo , Lewis Wolpert, Zanichelli ed

Developmental Biology 6° Ed , Scott F. Gilbert, Sinauer Associates Inc - Sunderland Mass.

Teaching methods

Lectures with audiovisual supports.

Assessment methods

Oral examination

Teaching tools

Audiovisual supports

Office hours

See the website of Carlo Taddei