Biology
Genes, development, and evolution

Development is the process by which a multicellular organism (plant or animal) goes through a series of changes, starting from a single cell, and taking on various forms that are characteristic of its life cycle. There are four key processes that underlie development: Determination, differentiation, morphogenesis, and growth. Determination sets the developmental fate of a cell, which becomes more restrictive during development. Differentiation is the process by which specialized cells arise from less specialized cells such as stem cells. Stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. Cellular differentiation dramatically changes a cell's size, shape, membrane potential, metabolic activity, and responsiveness to signals, which are largely due to highly controlled modifications in gene expression and epigenetics. With a few exceptions, cellular differentiation almost never involves a change in the DNA sequence itself. Thus, different cells can have very different physical characteristics despite having the same genome. Morphogenesis, or the development of body form, is the result of spatial differences in gene expression. A small fraction of the genes in an organism's genome called the developmental-genetic toolkit control the development of that organism. These toolkit genes are highly conserved among phyla, meaning that they are ancient and very similar in widely separated groups of animals. Differences in deployment of toolkit genes affect the body plan and the number, identity, and pattern of body parts. Among the most important toolkit genes are the Hox genes. Hox genes determine where repeating parts, such as the many vertebrae of snakes, will grow in a developing embryo or larva.
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