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Developmental biology

Making progress with limb models

Nature volume 418, pages 492–493 (2002)Cite this article

What is the developmental mechanism that makes our upper arms different from our forearms or fingers? Two new papers challenge an influential and popular model, and propose an alternative view.

Our limbs can move freely because they are constructed in segments, separated by articulations. The arm, for example, is composed of the upper arm, the forearm and the hand — three parts that develop from an early bud of unspecialized limb cells. How do these cells 'decide' which parts of the limb to form? Signals coming from a tissue in the limb bud called the apical ectodermal ridge (AER)1 are known to be important in limb development, and in one long-standing model, these signals instruct cells of the upper arm to form first, followed by cells of the forearm, and finally cells of the hand. But on pages 539 and 501 of this issue, Dudley and colleagues2 and Sun and co-workers3 put forward a different view. They propose that all these cell types are produced at the same time in the limb bud, and then — under the control of the AER — the regions of different cells expand at different times to form the complete limb.

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Figure 1: Developing limbs.

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  1. the Department of Zoology Animal Biology, University of Geneva, Sciences III, Quai Ernest Ansermet 30, Geneva, 1211 4, Switzerland

    Denis Duboule

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  1. Denis Duboule
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Correspondence to Denis Duboule.

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Duboule, D. Making progress with limb models. Nature 418, 492–493 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/418492a

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