We are all individuals: causes and consequences of non-genetic heterogeneity in mammalian cells

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Item Type:	Review
Title:	We are all individuals: causes and consequences of non-genetic heterogeneity in mammalian cells
Creators Name:	Loewer, A. and Lahav, G.
Abstract:	The human body is formed by trillions of individual cells. These cells work together with remarkable precision, first forming an adult organism out of a single fertilized egg, and then keeping the organism alive and functional for decades. To achieve this precision, one would assume that each individual cell reacts in a reliable, reproducible way to a given input, faithfully executing the required task. However, a growing number of studies investigating cellular processes on the level of single cells revealed large heterogeneity even among genetically identical cells of the same cell type. Here we discuss the sources of heterogeneity in mammalian systems; how cells ensure reliable processing of information despite fluctuations in their molecular components; and what could be the benefit of cell-to-cell variability for mammalian cells.
Keywords:	Biological Models, Cell Physiological Phenomena, Genetic Heterogeneity, Signal Transduction, Systems Biology
Source:	Current opinion in genetics & development
ISSN:	0959-437X
Publisher:	Elsevier
Volume:	21
Number:	6
Page Range:	753-758
Date:	December 2011
Official Publication:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2011.09.010
PubMed:	View item in PubMed

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