Continuing organizer function during chick tail development

Development ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 125 (10) ◽  
pp. 1791-1801 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Knezevic ◽  
R. De Santo ◽  
S. Mackem

Development of the posterior body (lumbosacral region and tail) in vertebrates is delayed relative to gastrulation. In amniotes, it proceeds with the replacement of the regressed node and primitive streak by a caudal blastema-like mass of mesenchyme known as the tail bud. Despite apparent morphological dissimilarities, recent results suggest that tail development in amniotes is in essence a continuation of gastrulation, as is the case in Xenopus. However, this has been inferred primarily from the outcome of fate mapping studies demonstrating discrete, regionalized cell populations in the tail bud, like those present at gastrulation. Our analysis of the tail bud distribution of several molecular markers that are expressed in specific spatial domains during chick gastrulation confirms these results. Furthermore, we present evidence that gastrulation-like ingression movements from the surface continue in the early chick tail bud and that the established tail bud retains organizer activity. This ‘tail organizer’ has the expected properties of being able to recruit uncommitted host cells into a new embryonic axis and induce host neural tissue with posteriorly regionalized gene expression when grafted to competent host cells that are otherwise destined to form only extra-embryonic tissue. Together, these results indicate that chick tail development is mechanistically continuous with gastrulation and that the developing tail in chick may serve as a useful experimental adjunct to investigate the molecular basis of inductive interactions operating during gastrulation, considering that residual tail organizing activity is still present at a surprisingly late stage.

Development ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-558
Author(s):  
J. R. Viswanath ◽  
Leela Mulherkar

Living Hensen's node of the definitive primitive streak of chick embryo was prepared into ‘sandwiches’ with the competent ectoderm and the sandwich grafts were transplated into the 2·5 day chick embryo using the intracoelomic grafting technique of Hamburger. One hundred and twenty-four grafts were prepared and transplanted intracoelomically, 28 grafts were lost due to the death of the host embryos, 63 grafts did not differentiate at all, but 33 well-defined grafts were recovered, after cultivating the transplanted hosts for 12–14 days. All kinds of tissues from feather germs to neural tissue were found to have differentiated in the grafts. The more frequently occurring tissues were feather germs, epidermal vesicle, neural tissue, kidney and muscle. Other differentiations were the cartilage notochord and gut. No definite combination pattern has emerged from the tissues. But when the tissues were traced to their germ-layer derivation, 22 of them belonged to the mesodermal complex, 11 to the ectodermal complex and 8 to the endodermal complex. In the light of the above results, the probable existence of a mesodermal factor and an ectodermal factor independently responsible for the respective differentiations, as also the competence of the ectoderm, is discussed.


1937 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. ABERCROMBIE ◽  
C. H. WADDINGTON

1. Grafts consisting of pieces of primitive streak from blastoderms in the primitive streak stage were placed under the primitive streak of blastoderms also in this stage. 2. Various effects of the host on the graft are described, particularly the reversal of the antero-posterior orientation of the graft, the alteration of the regional character of the graft so as to conform with the host tissues at the same level, the suppression of differentiation in the posterior end of the primitive streak, and the incorporation of the graft tissues into the host. 3. A considerable number of inductions occurred, since the host axis often apparently shifts to one side of the graft. The inductions are of two kinds, the normal evocation by graft mesoderm, resulting usually in the formation of superfluous neural tissue; and the complementary induction of a normal secondary axis, which it is supposed is most often due to the preliminary induction of a primitive streak in the host. 4. Various effects of the graft on the host occur. In particular the disturbance of the head mesenchyme suggests that foregut diverticula are produced where head mesenchyme joins lateral plate mesothelium.


1936 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-236
Author(s):  
C. H. WADDINGTON ◽  
A. COHEN

1. Experiments were made on the development of the head of chicken embryos cultivated in vitro. 2. Defects in the presumptive head region of primitive streak embryos are regulated completely if the wound fills up before the histogenesis of neural tissue begins in the head-process stage. Different methods by which the hole is filled are described. 3. No repair occurs in the head-process and head-fold stages, and in this period two masses of neural tissue cannot heal together. 4. Median defects, even if repaired as regards neural tissue, cause a failure of the ventral closure of the foregut. The lateral evaginations of the gut develop typically in atypical situations. The headfold may break through and join up with the endoderm in such a way that the gut acquires an anterior opening. 5. The paired heart rudiments may develop separately. The separate vesicles begin to contract at a time appropriate to the development of the embryo as a whole. The two hearts are mirror images, the left one having the normal curvature, but the embryos do not survive long enough for the hearts to acquire a very definite shape. 6. The forebrain has a considerable capacity for repair in the early somite stages (five to twenty-five somites). One-half of the forebrain can remodel itself into a complete forebrain. In some cases the neural plate and epidermis grow together over the wound, in others the epidermis and mesenchyme make the first covering, leaving a space along the inside of which the neural tissue grows. The neural tissue may become a very thin sheet. 7. The repaired forebrain may induce the formation of a nasal placode from the non-presumptive nasal epidermis which covers the wound. 8. If the optic vesicle is entirely removed, a new one is not formed, but parts of the vesicle can regulate to complete eye-cups, either when still attached to the forebrain or after being isolated in the extra-embryonic regions of another embryo. 9. Injured optic vesicles induce lenses from the non-presumptive epidermis which grows over the wound. Transplanted optic neural tissue from embryos of about five somites induces the formation of lentoids from extra-embryonic ectoderm, but only in a small proportion of cases. 10. The presumptive lens epidermis can produce a slight thickening even when contact with the optic cup is prevented. 11. The significance of periods of minimum regulatory power for the concept of determination is discussed. 12. The data concerning lens formation are discussed in terms of the field concept.


2017 ◽  
Vol 145 ◽  
pp. S82
Author(s):  
Filip Wymeersch ◽  
Stavroula Skylaki ◽  
Yali Huang ◽  
Anestis Tsakiridis ◽  
Constantinos Economou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

Development ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 122 (9) ◽  
pp. 2599-2610 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Catala ◽  
M.A. Teillet ◽  
E.M. De Robertis ◽  
M.L. Le Douarin

The spinal cord of thoracic, lumbar and caudal levels is derived from a region designated as the sinus rhomboidalis in the 6-somite-stage embryo. Using quail/chick grafts performed in ovo, we show the following. (1) The floor plate and notochord derive from a common population of cells, located in Hensen's node, which is equivalent to the chordoneural hinge (CNH) as it was defined at the tail bud stage. (2) The lateral walls and the roof of the neural tube originate caudally and laterally to Hensen's node, during the regression of which the basal plate anlage is bisected by floor plate tissue. (3) Primary and secondary neurulations involve similar morphogenetic movements but, in contrast to primary neurulation, extensive bilateral cell mixing is observed on the dorsal side of the region of secondary neurulation. (4) The posterior midline of the sinus rhomboidalis gives rise to somitic mesoderm and not to spinal cord. Moreover, mesodermal progenitors are spatially arranged along the rest of the primitive streak, more caudal cells giving rise to more lateral embryonic structures. Together with the results reported in our study of tail bud development (Catala, M., Teillet, M.-A. and Le Douarin, N.M. (1995). Mech. Dev. 51, 51–65), these results show that the mechanisms that preside at axial elongation from the 6-somite stage onwards are fundamentally similar during the complete process of neurulation.


Development ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 125 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.G. Storey ◽  
A. Goriely ◽  
C.M. Sargent ◽  
J.M. Brown ◽  
H.D. Burns ◽  
...  

Signals that induce neural cell fate in amniote embryos emanate from a unique cell population found at the anterior end of the primitive streak. Cells in this region express a number of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs), a group of secreted proteins implicated in the induction and patterning of neural tissue in the amphibian embryo. Here we exploit the large size and accessibility of the early chick embryo to analyse the function of FGF signalling specifically during neural induction. Our results demonstrate that extraembryonic epiblast cells previously shown to be responsive to endogenous neural-inducing signals express early posterior neural genes in response to local, physiological levels of FGF signal. This neural tissue does not express anterior neural markers or undergo neuronal differentiation and forms in the absence of axial mesoderm. Prospective mesodermal tissue is, however, induced and we present evidence for both the direct and indirect action of FGFs on prospective posterior neural tissue. These findings suggest that FGF signalling underlies a specific aspect of neural induction, the initiation of the programme that leads to the generation of the posterior central nervous system.


Development ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 253-266
Author(s):  
P. P. L. Tam

The caudal end of the embryonic axis consists of the primitive streak and the tail bud. Small fragments of this caudal tissue were transplanted from mouse embryos of various developmental stages to the kidney capsule in order to test their histogenetic capacity. The variety of mature tissues obtained from these small fragments was similar to that obtained by grafting a larger caudal portion of the embryo. Initially, the grafted tissue broke up into loose masses of embryonic mesenchyme and this was later re-organized into more compact tissues and into cysts that were lined with various types of epithelia. After 14 days in the ectopic site, grafted tissues coming from embryos of the primitive-streak, the early-somite and the forelimb-bud stages differentiated into structures that has presumably originated from the three embryonic germ layers. Many of these structures were related to the caudal region of the adult body, such as the mid- and hindgut segments and urogenital derivatives. The histogenetic capacity for endodermal tissues and urogenital organs was lost when the grafted tissue consisted entirely of the tail bud of the hindlimb-bud-stage embryos. The behaviour of the caudal tissues suggested that (1) the primordia for the various parts of embryonic body were derived from a small progenitor population in the primitive streak and the tail bud, and (2) the histogenetic capacity of this population changed during development.


In chick blastoderms at primitive streak stage, lengths of the primitive streak were cut out and replaced with their antero-posterior orientation reversed. In some experiments the region immediately in front of the primitive streak (presumptive prechordal head) was also included in the excisedpiece. Control operations involving excision and replacement without reversal were also performed. The embryos were subsequently grown in vitro by Waddington’s technique. After reversal of a variety of different parts of the streak at various developmental stages, many cases of regulative development were obtained. In these, the original orientation of the blastoderm was maintained, and while there were abnormalities of various kinds in the embryos, they were no different from the abnormalities found in the controls. Very occasionally the regulated axis was partially doubled after a reversal, though not after a control operation. A few specimens which had undergone reversal of long pieces of the primitive streak and had completely healed showed a failure of regulation in that there was some tendency for the reversed-piece to develop according to its own orientation. But at best this reversed differentiation was very distorted and incomplete. Evidently the orientation of the primitive streak does not at any stage control the orientation of the embryo; and the primitive streak, when it is fully developed and contains most of the presumptive axial material, is highly labile in its powers of differentiation. In spite of its well-known ‘organizer' activity, the primitive streak is subject to control by the surrounding blastoderm.


Microbiology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 155 (5) ◽  
pp. 1451-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverley A. Bray ◽  
Iain C. Sutcliffe ◽  
Dean J. Harrington

Although Streptococcus agalactiae, the group B Streptococcus, is a leading cause of invasive neonatal disease worldwide the molecular basis of its virulence is still poorly understood. To investigate the role of lipoproteins in the physiology and interaction of this pathogen with host cells, we generated a mutant S. agalactiae strain (A909ΔLgt) deficient in the Lgt enzyme and thus unable to lipidate lipoprotein precursors (pro-lipoproteins). The loss of pro-lipoprotein lipidation did not affect the viability of S. agalactiae or its growth in several different media, including cation-depleted media. The processing of two well-characterized lipoproteins, but not a non-lipoprotein, was clearly shown to be aberrant in A909ΔLgt. The mutant strain was shown to be more sensitive to oxidative stress in vitro although the molecular basis of this increased sensitivity was not apparent. The inactivation of Lgt also resulted in changes to the bacterial cell envelope, as demonstrated by reduced retention of both the group B carbohydrate and the polysaccharide capsule and a statistically significant reduction (P=0.0079) in A909ΔLgt adherence to human endothelial cells of fetal origin. These data confirm that failure to process lipoproteins correctly has pleiotropic effects that may be of significance to S. agalactiae colonization and pathogenesis.


Development ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 125 (3) ◽  
pp. 507-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Streit ◽  
K.J. Lee ◽  
I. Woo ◽  
C. Roberts ◽  
T.M. Jessell ◽  
...  

We have investigated the role of Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4 (BMP-4) and a BMP antagonist, chordin, in primitive streak formation and neural induction in amniote embryos. We show that both BMP-4 and chordin are expressed before primitive streak formation, and that BMP-4 expression is downregulated as the streak starts to form. When BMP-4 is misexpressed in the posterior area pellucida, primitive streak formation is inhibited. Misexpression of BMP-4 also arrests further development of Hensen's node and axial structures. In contrast, misexpression of chordin in the anterior area pellucida generates an ectopic primitive streak that expresses mesoderm and organizer markers. We also provide evidence that chordin is not sufficient to induce neural tissue in the chick. Misexpression of chordin in regions outside the future neural plate does not induce the early neural markers L5, Sox-3 or Sox-2. Furthermore, neither BMP-4 nor BMP-7 interfere with neural induction when misexpressed in the presumptive neural plate before or after primitive streak formation. However, chordin can stabilise the expression of early neural markers in cells that have already received neural inducing signals. These results suggest that the regulation of BMP signalling by chordin plays a role in primitive streak formation and that chordin is not sufficient to induce neural tissue.


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