Generic Theoretical Models to Predict Division Patterns of Cleaving Embryos

Publication date: 19 December 2016
Source:Developmental Cell, Volume 39, Issue 6
Author(s): Anaëlle Pierre, Jérémy Sallé, Martin Wühr, Nicolas Minc
Life for all animals starts with a precise 3D choreography of reductive divisions of the fertilized egg, known as cleavage patterns. These patterns exhibit conserved geometrical features and striking interspecies invariance within certain animal classes. To identify the generic rules that may govern these morphogenetic events, we developed a 3D-modeling framework that iteratively infers blastomere division positions and orientations, and consequent multicellular arrangements. From a minimal set of parameters, our model predicts detailed features of cleavage patterns in the embryos of fishes, amphibians, echinoderms, and ascidians, as well as the genetic and physical perturbations that alter these patterns. This framework demonstrates that a geometrical system based on length-dependent microtubule forces that probe blastomere shape and yolk gradients, biased by cortical polarity domains, may dictate division patterns and overall embryo morphogenesis. These studies thus unravel the default self-organization rules governing early embryogenesis and how they are altered by deterministic regulatory layers.

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Teaser

Pierre et al. develop computational models to make predictions on the positions and orientations of division axes in subsequent rounds of embryonic cleavages across fishes, amphibians, echinoderms, and ascidians. The model reveals a set of simple self-organizing rules that can predict the morphogenesis of early developing embryos from different species.


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