{"id":253804,"date":"2023-07-28T20:27:17","date_gmt":"2023-07-28T14:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=253804"},"modified":"2023-07-28T20:27:17","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T14:57:17","slug":"discovered-a-mechanism-that-quietly-removes-unfit-cells-before-youre-born","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/discovered-a-mechanism-that-quietly-removes-unfit-cells-before-youre-born\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovered: A mechanism that quietly removes unfit cells before you\u2019re born"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post is based on the article <\/span><b>\u201c<\/b><b>Discovered: A mechanism that quietly removes unfit cells before you\u2019re born<\/b><b>\u201d <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0published in <\/span><b>The Hindu on 26th July 2023.<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is the News?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists have found that cells that don\u2019t express a particular gene are destroyed before an embryo starts to develop.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What are non committed cells?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the early stages of the human embryo, before it has implanted in the mother\u2019s womb,\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the cells arrange themselves in a particular way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A blob of cells gathers towards one side of the embryo and the other cells arrange themselves around this blob. This blob is called the <\/span><b>inner cell mass. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It contains cells with the ability to make all the other types of cells in the human body \u2013 i.e. the cells in this blob are <\/span><b>pluripotent.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Within the inner cell mass, researchers in 2016 had discovered a novel group of cells called <\/span><b>non-committed cells.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These non-committed cells did not participate in the later stages of embryo development and appeared to be eliminated early on compared to the other inner cell mass cells, which contributed to forming the developing embryo.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Why do these non committed cells die so young?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A study has found that human embryonic stem cells express a gene called <\/span><b>HERVH,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a virus-like gene that\u2019s important in maintaining pluripotency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Most of the inner cell mass cells also express HERVH \u2013 but not the non-committed cells that eventually die.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The non committed cells actually express<\/span><b> transposons also called \u201cjumping genes\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. These jumping genes are dangerous little pieces of DNA that can insert themselves into different regions of the genome, damaging it and leading to cell death. The DNA damage caused by the transposons leads to these cells dying out early<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the other hand, HERVH actually ends up protecting the cells from the damage inflicted by the jumping genes, kickstarting a protective mechanism that prevents the transposons from getting expressed in most cells.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the non-committed cells that don\u2019t express HERVH are killed off by the uncontrolled transposon activity.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article \u201cDiscovered: A mechanism that quietly removes unfit cells before you\u2019re born\u201d \u00a0published in The Hindu on 26th July 2023. What is the News? Scientists have found that cells that don\u2019t express a particular gene are destroyed before an embryo starts to develop. What are non committed cells?&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/discovered-a-mechanism-that-quietly-removes-unfit-cells-before-youre-born\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Discovered: A mechanism that quietly removes unfit cells before you\u2019re born<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,1738,9],"tags":[10498],"class_list":["post-253804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-science-and-technology-daily-factly-articles","category-public","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":4,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1698430862},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}