SCOTTISH scientists have identified an evolutionary molecule that could play a key role in how cells develop into the building blocks of life.
Biologists have tried to understand how cells that begin identical develop into specialist cells that make up tissues and organs.
Researchers at the College of Life Sciences at Dundee University, led by Professor Pauline Schaap, have identified a molecule called cyclic-di-GMP as being the "signal" which can induce the changes.
Professor Schaap said: "Our work presents the opportunity to fully understand how cells learned to become different from each other in early multi-cellular organisms.
"These findings are also remarkable because cyclic-di-GMP was previously only found in bacteria."
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