Is maternal mRNA a determinant of tissue-specific proteins in ascidian embryos?

The generation of different cell types during embryonic development is thought to be mediated by the combined activity of cytoplasmic factors (determinants), which are localized in the egg, and inductive interactions, which occur between different embryonic cells and tissues. Ascidians, animals that exhibit rapid and exceptionally autonomous development (reviewed by Jeffery, 1985), appear to employ cytoplasmic determinants to generate embryonic cell diversity. Although determinants have not been identified in ascidians or other animals, it is hypothesized that they function in at least two different ways. First, as initially pointed out by Morgan (1934), determinants may be regulatory factors which promote differential gene expression in specific cell lineages. Consistent with this possibility, inhibitors of transcription, added prior to gastrulation, block the appearance of some ascidian tissue-specific enzymes and morphological markers whose expression is regulated by the activity of cytoplasmic determinants (Whittaker, 1973; Crowther & Whittaker, 1984). Second, determinants may be localized factors which promote cell diversification independent of zygotic gene expression.