Periodic sensitivity of mechanisms of cytodifferentiation in cleaving eggs of Limnaea stagnalis
Investigations on cellular reproduction have led to a highly resolved and integrated picture of the cell cycle in a morphological and physiological sense. The various preparations for division, doubling of components or syntheses, follow their own time course parallel to one another. It has become evident that the various factors involved in cell division are dissociable, for example chromosome doubling and reproduction of centrioles (Bucher & Mazia, 1960), DNA replication and protein synthesis (Zeuthen, 1961). The conditions for cell division in general are applicable to division of egg cells. However, in addition in egg cells there is a complicating system of morphogenetic factors acting, as must be postulated from the observation that in ‘mosaic’ eggs the fate of the blastomeres is fixed. In dividing eggs differences between daughter cells may be due to local differences established during oögenesis in the mother which are parcelled out during cleavages.