The concept of differential gene expression is central to de

The concept of differential gene expression is central to developmental biology. Describe the role differential gene expression plays in the transition of mammalian blastomere cells from a totipotent to a pluripotent state at the 8-16 cell stage.

Solution

The differential gene expression plays an important role in moving from totipotent to pluripotent.This phase includes the various modifications to be done to the histones which can occur in the form of acetylation, methylation, phosphorylation, ubiquitination, and ADP-ribosylation .This is usually done to the totupotent and this process if followdby the methylation of DNA which usually occurs at the CpG dinucleotides These changes are used to regulate expression and also result in the silencing of genes at the level of transcription which in turns leads to the formation of pluripotent state .This state is usually mediated by the level of packaging DNA which produces chromatin.