Biomedical subjects

F Meins

Publications and source records attributed to F Meins.

61 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

PubMed1977

Epigenetic variation of cultured somatic cells: evidence for gradual changes in the requirement for factors promoting cell division.

Cells of higher plant species in culture sometimes lose their requirement for an exogenous supply of a cell division factor that, thereafter, they are able to produce. This heritable change, known as cytokinin habituation, appears to be an epigenetic one rather than a classical mutation because it is directed, potentially reversible, leaves the cell totipotent, and involves the expression of a latent differentiated function. By using cloned cell lines derived from pith parenchyma of tobacco, we have obtained evidence that the habituation process is gradual rather than all-or-none and leads to progressively more autotrophic tissues. Cells in culture show reversible shifts among a range of habituated states but remain totipotent and can be induced to regain their requirement for a cell division factor. Thus, it appears that habituation involves epigenetic changes in a quantitative cellular phenotype. Our findings support the hypothesis that tumor progression in crown gall, a neoplastic disease of higher plants, can be accounted for by heritable changes in the pattern of gene expression.

Cell Differentiation↗

PubMed1977

Reversal of the neoplastic state in plants.

Crown-gall transformation involves the gradual and progressive activation of several biosynthetic capacities of the normal cell. These changes in cellular heredity, although extremely stable, are nonetheless potentially reversible and leave the cell totipotent. There is growing evidence that tumor-inducing principle is a self-replicating entity similar to a plasmid. Thus, it could be argued that tumor progression involves changes in the number or state of these entities in the cell. Studies of CDF habituation bear directly on this problem. Conversion of a cell division factor (CDF)-requiring normal cell to the CDF-autotrophic state is a key event in transformation. The fact that CDF habituation is progressive, occurs in the absence of agents of bacterial origin, and has an epigenetic basis indicates that it is not necessary to invoke either somatic mutation or the addition of foreign genes to account for tumor stability and progression in crown-gall. This conclusion provides further support for the hypothesis that, in the words of Braun,(78) "... the cancer problem is basically a problem of anomolous differentiation... Neoplastic growth, like developmental processes, stems from epigenetic modifications against a constant cellular genome."

Cell Differentiation↗

PubMed1973

Habituation of tobacco pith cells for factors promoting cell division is heritable and potentially reversible.

A type of heritable cellular change, known as habituation, occurs spontaneously in plant tissue and cell culture. This phenomenon is characterized by a newly acquired capacity of plant cells to produce growth regulatory substances. Using cloned lines of tobacco pith parenchyma cells, we demonstrated that a newly acquired character, in this instance an ability to produce a factor promoting cell division, is inherited by individual cells, that it persists for long periods of time, but that it is regularly reversible under completely defined experimental conditions. Evidence is presented that suggests that habituation results from heritable alterations in the pattern of gene expression and that it can, therefore, be used as a model for study of cell differentiation. The significance of these findings to the tumor problem is discussed.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1972