Determinate and indeterminate cleavage

Determinate cleavage is the form of cleavage in most protostomes. It results in the developmental fate of the cells being set early in the embryo development. Each cell produced by early embryonic cleavage retains the capacity to develop into a complete embryo.

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A cell can only be indeterminate if it has a complete set of undisturbed animal/vegetal cytoarchitectural features. Indeterminate cleavage is a characteristic of deuterostomes - when the original cell in a deuterostome embryo divides, the two resulting cells can be separated, and each one can individually develop into a whole organism.

See also

• Identical twin
• Schizocoelous and enterocoelous
• Spiral and radial cleavage