Along with a strict determinism of early embryogenesis in most living organisms, the variability of cell fates and developmental pathways exhibits in some of them. We propose that both determinism and variability are established through cell interactions, with the important role played by cell potency, cell sensitivity and cell signaling. The sensitivity of embryonic stem cells is considered to be strong, while the sensitivity of fully differentiated cells is small. This means that high potency correlates with high sensitivity, and vice versa. Experimental data were obtained and analyzed for the early developmental stages of plant species with regular and irregular types of embryogenesis, which explicit correspondingly determinism or variability of developmental pathways. For the irregular type the species with underdeveloped embryos in mature seeds were examined. As the result, we propose three conjectures for explanation the phenomenon of variability, leading to the invariant final embryo shape, and support each of these cases with the example(s) of actual developmental pathways.
Nadya Morozova
