#gastrulation

Culture of Continuity

Models of embryo formation called blastoids created from human pluripotent stem cells grown on a 3D matrix bear characteristics of continuous early development from pre-implantation to early gastrulation – the point of multi-layered organisation

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Rowan M. Karvas and colleagues

Department of Developmental Biology and Center of Regenerative Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Cell Stem Cell, September 2023

Friction shapes zebrafish embryos: Mechanical forces regulate formation of neural tube

A simple ball of cells is the starting point for humans -- and zebrafish. At the end of embryonic development, however, a fish and a human look very different. The biochemical signals at play have been studied extensively. How mechanical forces on the other hand shape the embryo is the subject of a study by Carl-Philipp Heisenberg, Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), and his group, including first author and postdoc Michael Smutny. In their study, published today in Nature Cell Biology, the researchers show that friction between moving tissues generates force. This force shapes the nervous system of the zebrafish embryo, a popular animal model of embryonic development. "We show that friction is generated by forming tissues sliding against each other, and that this force is a key mechanism for regulating morphogenesis during embryo development," Carl-Philipp Heisenberg explains.

Michael Smutny, Zsuzsa Ákos, Silvia Grigolon, Shayan Shamipour, Verena Ruprecht, Daniel Čapek, Martin Behrndt, Ekaterina Papusheva, Masazumi Tada, Björn Hof, Tamás Vicsek, Guillaume Salbreux, Carl-Philipp Heisenberg. Friction forces position the neural anlage. Nature Cell Biology, 2017; DOI: 10.1038/ncb3492

Shaping Up Differently

In the earliest days of development, gastrulation separates embryonic cells into distinct layers destined to become different tissues and organs. Watching this early mouse embryo under a high-powered microscope, scientists study how the endoderm layer (highlighted in green) develops separately from the mesoderm (red). They know the mesoderm forms when epithelial cells lining the embryo reprogram themselves, switching on specific genes in a process called epithelial–mesenchymal transition. Textbooks have it that something similar happens to the endoderm. Challenging this, the scientists find that some epithelial cells can change their shape – their morphology – then migrate to become part of the endoderm, while making molecules to stop themselves from becoming part of the mesoderm. This discovery may reveal ways to help embryos during development, or perhaps block similar shapeshifting employed by migrating cancer cells.

Written by John Ankers

Image from work by Katharina Scheibner, Silvia Schirge and Ingo Burtscher, and colleagues

Institute of Diabetes and Regeneration Research, Helmholtz Diabetes Center, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Munich, Germany

Image copyright held by the original authors

Research published in Nature Cell Biology, July 2020

Only two weeks after fertilization, the first sign of the formation of the 3 axes of the human body (head/tail, ventral/dorsal, and right/left) begins to appear. At this stage, known as gastrulation, a flat and featureless sheet of cells folds into a living blueprint for the body, a fleeting transformation into axes and layers that will determine how every tissue develops. This all-important…

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Human embryology - video

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