linkedin post 2016-12-30 06:24:41

YEAST DIVISION OF LABOR. “We also observed the evolution of division of labor within the cluster: most cells remain viable and reproduce, but a minority of cells become apoptotic. Apoptotic cells act as break points within multicellular clusters, allowing snowflake yeast to produce a greater number of propagules from a given number of cells. This is functionally analogous to germ-soma differentiation, where cells specialize into reproductive and nonreproductive tasks. These results demonstrate that multicellular traits readily evolve as a consequence of among-cluster selection.”

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/5/1595.full

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