Making A Shell (image)

Molecular Biology and Evolution (Oxford University Press)

Caption

Much like other specialized skin structures of turtles, the scutes of the shell are produced by epidermal keratinocyte differentiation, as a special set of EDC genes are upregulated to make structural proteins while cells are passively moved toward the skin surface; ultimately keratinocytes undergo cornification, a mode of programmed cell death that generates rigid and interconnected cell corpses.

Credit

Leopold Eckhart, Medical University of Vienna

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