Desynchronizing Embryonic Cell Division Waves Reveals the Robustness of Xenopus laevis Development

Publication date: 3 October 2017
Source:Cell Reports, Volume 21, Issue 1
Author(s): Graham A. Anderson, Lendert Gelens, Julie C. Baker, James E. Ferrell
The early Xenopus laevis embryo is replete with dynamic spatial waves. One such wave, the cell division wave, emerges from the collective cell division timing of first tens and later hundreds of cells throughout the embryo. Here, we show that cell division waves do not propagate between neighboring cells and do not rely on cell-to-cell coupling to maintain their division timing. Instead, intrinsic variation in division period autonomously and gradually builds these striking patterns of cell division. Disrupting this pattern of division by placing embryos in a temperature gradient resulted in highly asynchronous entry to the midblastula transition and misexpression of the mesodermal marker Xbra. Remarkably, this gene expression defect is corrected during involution, resulting in delayed yet normal Xbra expression and viable embryos. This implies the existence of a previously unknown mechanism for normalizing mesodermal gene expression during involution.

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Teaser

Anderson et al. apply strong temperature differences across young frog embryos to desynchronize the regular cell division timing. They find that all cells behave as independent oscillators. Moreover, they see that, although mesoderm induction becomes abnormal initially, the embryos are still able to get their development back on track.


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