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  3. Nearly a century ago, biologists found that if they separated an invertebrate animal embryo into two parts at an early stage of

Nearly a century ago, biologists found that if they separated an invertebrate animal embryo into two parts at an early stage of

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问题     Nearly a century ago, biologists found that if they separated an invertebrate animal embryo into two parts at an early stage of its life, it would survive and develop as two normal embryos. This led them to believe that the cells in the early embryo are undetermined in the sense that each cell has the potential to develop in a variety of different ways. Later biologists found that the situation was not so simple. It matters in which plane the embryo is cut. If it is cut in a plane different from the one used by the early investigators, it will not form two whole embryos.
    A debate arose over what exactly was happening. Which embryo cells are determined, just when do they become irreversibly committed to their fates, and what are the "morphogenetic determinants" that tell a cell what to become? But the debate could not be resolved because no one was able to ask the crucial questions in a form in which they could be pursued productively. Recent discoveries in molecular biology, however, have opened up prospects for a resolution of the debate. Now investigators think they know at least some of the molecules that act as morphogenetic deter- minants in early development. They have been able to show that, in a sense, cell determination begins even before an egg is fertilized.
    Studying sea urchins, biologist Paul Gross found that an unfertilized egg contains substances that function as morphogenetic determinants. They are located in the cytoplasm of the egg cell; i.e. , in that part of the cell’s pro- toplasm that lies outside of the nucleus. In the unfertilized egg, the substances are inactive and are not distributed homogeneously. When the egg is fertilized, the substances become active and, presumably, govern the behavior of the genes they interact with. Since the substances are unevenly distributed in the egg, when the fertilized egg divides, the resulting cells are different from the start and so can be qualitatively different in their own gene activity.
    The substances that Gross studied are maternal messenger RNA’ s—products of certain of the maternal genes. He and other biologists studying a wide variety of organisms have found that these particular RNA’s direct, in large part, the synthesis of histones, a class of proteins that bind to DNA. Once synthesized, the histones move into the cell nucleus, where section of DNA wrap around them to form a structure that resembles beads, or knots, on a string. The beads are DNA segments wrapped around the histones; the string is the intervening DNA. And it is the structure of these beaded DNA strings that guides the fate of the cells in which they are located.
It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following is dependent on the fertilization of an egg?
选项 A、Copying of maternal genes to produce maternal messenger RNA’s.
B、Synthesis of proteins called histones.
C、Division of a cell into its nucleus and the cytoplasm.
D、Determination of the egg cell’ s potential for division.
E、Generation of all of a cell’s morpho-genetic determinants.
答案B
解析 以下哪一个有赖于卵子的受精?A．母系基因的复制从而产生母系信使RNA。RNA是“形态发生决定体”中一种，L35～37指出，它们在受精前已存在。B．组蛋白的合成。正确。原文L55—59指出组蛋白合成受RNA控制(direct)，而L43—46指出受精后，“形态发生决定体”才活跃并决定(govern)某些基因的行为。所以，此行为有赖于受精。C．细胞分裂，分化为细胞核和细胞质。文中未提。D．卵细胞分裂趋势的确定。无。E．一个细胞内所有“形态发生决定体”的产生。无。
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