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Lorin E. Olson, Michael G. Rosenfeld, Perspective: Genetic and Genomic Approaches in Elucidating Mechanisms of Pituitary Development, Endocrinology, Volume 143, Issue 6, 1 June 2002, Pages 2007–2011, https://doi.org/10.1210/endo.143.6.8867
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Introduction
Emergence of distinct cell types from a common primordium during pituitary development occurs in response to opposing signaling gradients that induce an overlapping temporal and spatial pattern of transcriptional regulators. Opposing actions of two structurally related DNA-binding transcription factors direct early and late developmental events by sequentially repressing and activating an overlapping set of target genes. Complementary genetic and genomic approaches will now permit a full elucidation of the precise molecular mechanisms that underlie all phases of pituitary organogenesis.
Genetic, molecular biological, and more recently genomic approaches have permitted over the last 25 yr a revealing outline of events that underlie embryogenesis, including the generation of organs containing distinct cell types from common primordia. These investigations have consistently revealed the critical role of spatially expressed signals and gradients of signaling molecules in establishing positional commitment events, based on induction of cohorts of transcription factors that control subsets of genes that specify cell type determination, and subsequently, differentiation. Cell-autonomous commitment is often correlated with establishment of autoregulatory loops of restricted, often cell type-specific transcription factors.
