Cell death and the development of limb form and skeletal pattern in normal and wingless (ws) chick embryos.

The wingless condition resulting from the action of the sex-linked wingless (ws) gene arises from the precocious appearance of cell death in the anterior necrotic zone (ANZ) of the forelimb-bud at stage 19 (3 days) and its progressive extension beyond its normal area during stages 20-23. A similar though less pronounced effect occurs in the hindlimb-bud. Although some wingless hindlimb-buds are normal, others are affected by the precocious appearance of cell death in the ANZ. The ws wingless mutant resembles the different wingless mutant investigated by Zwilling (1956) in that the apical ectodermal ridge (AER) is absent in most ws wing-buds. AER absence could be due to ws mesenchymal cell death interfering with the production of apical ectodermal maintenance factor (AEMF), which Zwilling claims is necessary to maintain the AER which plays an essential role in inducing limb outgrowth. Wingless mutant phenotypes range from birds with rudimentary wings and normal legs through a modal type with forelimbs absent and hindlimbs normal to wingless and legless forms showing a high degree of expressivity. Individual wingless embryos vary in the degree to which the precocious ANZ appearing at 3 days is extended into the limb-bud and the wide range of wingless phenotypic expression is attributed to this variation. Electron microscopic and histochemical analysis of the cell death process in wingless wing-buds revealed the presence of both isolated dead cells and macrophages, which contained intense acid phosphatase activity. These findings are interpreted as showing that isolated dead cells are ingested by neighbouring mesenchymal cells which thus become transformed into macrophages, first ingesting and then digesting further dead cells. A study was made of the origin of the anomalous hindlimb condition, including absence or reduction of the tibia and digits, characteristic of severely affected wingless embryos. Autoradiographic analysis of the pattern of SO4 uptake revealed that at stage 24/5 (4\ days) wingless hindlimb-buds which were smaller than normal had a normal prospective fibula region, but that the prospective tibia region was small or absent. Thus the effect of a precocious hindlimb ANZ at stages 19-22 is to reduce or delete the pre-axial prospective tibia at stage 24/5.