Lining up cells: The hidden messages of arrows

Ariane DröscherDip. di Storia, Culture, Civiltà - Università di Bologna

1

"Sorting, Simulating, and Decoding Cells: Lineages, Networks, and Systems”,

IMeRA ,1-2 juillet 2014, Marseille, France

2

„Embryonic‟

stem cells

Common representations of stem cells

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from: Institut de recherche en Biothérapie (Montpellier)http://irb.chu-montpellier.fr/fr/presentation_projetscientifique.html

Common representations of stem cells

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„Adult‟ stem cells

Common representations of stem cells

http://www.elsevierimages.com/im

ages/vpv/000/000/033/33146-

0550x0475.jpg

Hematopoietic

stem cells

Common representations of stem cells

6

Hematopoietic

stem cells

Common representations of stem cells

7

Family stem tree diagram (pedigree)

8

Tree diagram (without tree)

Lullo‟s ladder,

1304

1579

Linear (and fix) order of Nature

de Saint-Pierre, 1773

(fix) diversification

Allgemeine Naturgeschichte

und Theorie des Himmels,

1755:

The universe as a whole

undergoes an evolution.

Maybe the world is

thousand, or million years

old?

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

The temporal dimension of lining up

The divergence of species (Darwin, 1859)

today

• a vertical continuity (historical)

• a horizontal discontinuity (current)

13

Francis Galton,since 1866

schematic table-like

pedigrees of eminent

families and of specific

social or professional

groups

illustrate that high

social status and

certain traits are

biologically inherited

The causal dimension of lining up

Progress!!

15

Ernst Haeckel

“phylogenesis”:

phylé = trunk, stock

génesis = formation,

development

Since mid-19th century:

The cell –

an elementary

organism

and

the key for the

understanding of any

vital phenomenon

17Haeckel, 1866Haeckel, 1874

Linking Darwinism and cell theory

Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, 1868,

15. Vortrag, Stammbaum und Geschichte des

Protistenreiches:

“Auf Grund der embryologischen Urkunden

können wir also mit voller Sicherheit behaupten,

daß alle mehrzelligen Organismen eben so gut

wie alle einzelligen ursprünglich von einfachen

Zellen abstammen; hieran würde sich sehr na-

türlich der Schluß reihen, daß die älteste Wurzel

des Thier- und Pflanzenreichs gemeinsam ist.

Denn die verschiedenen uralten „Stammzellen‟, aus denen sich

die wenigen verschiedenen Hauptgruppen oder "Stämme"

(Phylen) des Thier- und Pflanzenreichs entwickelt haben,

könnten ihre Verschiedenheit selbst erst erworben haben, und

könnten selbst von einer gemeinsamen „Urstammzelle‟

abstammen.”

18

Ernst Haeckel(1834-1919)

The History of Creation, 1876,

vol. II, ch. XVI: Pedigree and History of the

Kingdom of the Protista, p. 41:

“Upon the grounds of embryological records,

therefore, we can with full assurance main-

tain that all many-celled, as well as single-

celled, organisms are originally descended

from simple cells; connected with this, of

course is the conclusion that the most ancient

root of the animal and vegetable kingdom was common to

both. For the different primaeval „original cells‟ out of

which the few main groups or tribes have developed, only

acquires differences after a time, and were descended

from a common „primaeval‟.”

19

Ernst Haeckel(1834-1919)

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• Volksstamm

• Abstammung

• Stammvater

• Stammhalter

• Stammlokal

• Stammtisch

• Stammpersonal

• …

21

Benoit Dayrat,

The roots of phylogeny: How did

Haeckel build his trees?

Syst. Biol. 52(4) 2003, 520

22

Benoit Dayrat,

The roots of phylogeny: How did

Haeckel build his trees?

Syst. Biol. 52(4) 2003, 520

23

The Urpflanze

Wilhelm Troll 1954

J.W. von Goethe1790

E. Haeckel: Anthropogenie, 1874, (Engl. 1905):

Vol. I, p. 103f: “The ovum stands potentially for the

entire organism – in other words, it has the faculty of

building up out of itself the whole multicellular body. It

is the common parent [Stammmutter] of all the

countless generations of cells which form the different

tissues of the body; it unites all their powers in itself,

though only potentially or in the germ. In complete

contrast to this, the neural cell in the brain [...]

develops along one rigid line. It cannot, like the ovum,

beget endless generations of cells, of which some will

become skin-cells, others muscle-cells, and others again

bone-cells.”

24

25

amorphous

great genetic

potency

delicate final

differentiated-ness

“Wechsel der Materie”(transformation of matter)

26

Haeckel, Anthropogenie, 1874

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Stem cells as ancestral and nearly formless

entities possessing great developmental

potency

Cancer research

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1875:

Theory of tumors deriving

from “embryonic remnant

cells”, that have not

differentiated during

ontogenesis remaining latent

within the tissue until they

“awake” and develop into

cancer cells.

Julius Friedrich Cohnheim

(1839-1884)

From the simple to the diversified

29(© Fotalia)

1990s: biological regeneration

the body as a reservoir of different stem cells

From the simple to the diversified

30

causal-historical thinking

From the late 18th century on, a growing

movement of scholars, many of them becoming

adherents of vital materialism, found in causal-

historical explanations a valid alternative for the

purely physiomechanical approach.

Complementing the physical and chemical laws of

nature, the historical method mainly consisted in

understanding a phenomenon, process or form

through the antecedent one.

The causal-historical dimension of

lining up

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1874: “every stage of

development … appears

as the necessary

consequence of the

preceding one”

Wilhelm His(1831-1904)

Illustration of temporal linearity

August

Weismann(1834–1914)

32

dynamic and

causal-

historical

conception at

the cellular

level

33

Weismann, 1892: the germ track („Keimbahn‟)

Weismann, 1892: development of the fore-limb of Triton

the „Urzelle‟ contains the determinants 1-35 which are

then progressively distributed

34

Weismann, 1892: development of the fore-limb of Triton

the „Urzelle‟ contains the determinants 1-35 which are

then progressively distributed

35

The cell divisions are not just the moment of

doubling the number of cells, but the either/or

moments that decide the future of the following

cell generations.

36

Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli’s schematic representation of the growth of the germ layer of the liverwort

Lunularia vulgaris (from: Nägeli 1845b, Tab. III, Fig. 1-23).

37

“A general view of the cleavage may be obtained

from the accompanying diagram or cytogenetic tree,

which represents accurately the genetic relations of

the blastomeres up to the complete establishment of

bilaterality.”

E.B. WILSON, The cell lineage of Nereis. A

contribution to the cytogeny of the annelid body.

Journal of Morphology 6, 1892, 361-480, p. 383:

38

Lining up cells unidirectionally …

… suggests prediction/prognosis

E.B. Wilson‟s „cytogenetic tree‟, 1892

39

Wilson‟s (1892) double

representation

Theodor Boveri (1862–1915)

1892:Über die Entstehung des

Gegensatzes zwischen den

Geschlechtszellen und die

somatischen Zellen bei Ascaris

megalocephela. (Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft für

Morphologie und Physiologie 8: 114-125)

40

Chromatin reduction

during the first four cell

divisions

41

“Stammzellen”

The stem cells as the primordial

cells of the germ-cell line

“I have already emphasized earlier, how much this process

corresponds to Weismann‟s theory of the continuity of the

germ-plasm.”

42

O. Hertwig, 1906A. Giardina, 1901

43

3rd ed. 1925

Edmund B. WILSON

Wilhelm Türks (1871-1916) Stammbaum der Blutzellen, 1904

44

Arthur Pappenheim‟s Stem tree of blood cells (1905)

45

46

Lining up …

… holds a series of implicit and often over-lapping

meanings,

which render the interpretation of diagrams

ambiguous

47

Lining up …

… suggests a (lateral,

ascendant, descendant)

succession of events,

processes and/or

forms

48

A→B represents a relation that may

be:

1. temporal

(B comes after A),

2. material

(B is made of A’s matter),

3. genealogic

(B is a direct descent of A),

4. causal

(B is caused by A)

49

A→B represents a relation that may

be:

1. temporal

(B comes after A),

2. material

(B is made of A‘s matter),

3. genealogic

(B is a direct descent of A),

4. causal

(B is caused by A)

50

A→B represents a relation that is:

1. temporal

(B comes after A),

2. material

(B is made of A‘s matter),

3. genealogic

(B is a direct descent of A),

4. causal

(B is caused by A)

51

“Although causality is a seemingly high-level

property, its perception – like the perception of

faces or speech – often appears to be automatic,

irresistible, and driven by highly constrained

and stimulus-driven rules”.

Hoon Choi and Brian J. Scholl, “Effects of grouping and

attention on the perception of causality,” Perception &

Psychophysics, 2004, 66(6): 926-942, on p. 926.

52

Determinism is suggested by temporal linearity.

The stronger the linearity, the more the succession

becomes the cause, whereas position and the lateral

influences or contingencies are set aside.

53

The (popular) image of stem cell development:

- single cells are the agents

- prospective

- directed

- „one sense“

- causal-historical conception

- transformation of matter

from: Office fédéral

de la santé publique

suisse

http://www.bag.admin.ch/

transplantation/00698/025

91/02799/index.html?lang

=fr

54

Sir John B. Gurdon

Nobel prize for physiology 2012

Shinya Yamanaka

“… for the discovery that mature cells

can be reprogrammed to become

pluripotent"

55

iPSC: a revolution of the basics of developmental biology?

56

Yet common representations have remained the same

57

Shinya Yamanaka: Elite and stochastic models for induced

pluripotent stem cell generation. Nature 460(2 July 2009), 49-52

58

The diagram (based on Conrad Waddington‟s one) still illustrates the

“either/or” nature of cell fate, which is determined in the exact

moment of cell division.

Problem: the rivers must „jump “.

59

James Till and Ernest McCulloch, 1961

(studying the effects of radiation on mice)

Alternative representations

60

Pera, Martin F. & Patrick

P.L. Tam:

Extrinsic regulation of

pluripotent stem cells

Nature 465, 713–720 (10

June 2010)

Alternative representations