To examine the nature of cytoplasm determinants for dorsal specification in zebrafish, we have developed a method in which we remove the vegetal yolk hemisphere of early fertilized eggs (vegetal removed embryos). When the vegetal yolk mass was removed at the 1-cell stage, the embryos frequently exhibited typical ventralized phenotypes: no axial structures developed. The frequency of dorsal defe...

Inverted amphibian embryos were employed for an analysis of pattern formation in early embryogenesis. Axolotl (Ambystoma) and Xenopus eggs were inverted prior to the first cleavage division and permitted to develop upside down to the early gastrulation stage. In both cases the cleavage patterns of the animal and vegetal hemispheres were reversed. By gastrulation, however, developmental arrest b...

Ultra-violet (u.v.) irradiation of the vegetal pole of newly fertilized eggs has three documented effects: reduction of primordial germ cells (PGCs), cytological damage to the vegetal hemisphere and disruption of the normal mechanism by which the vegetal yolk mass induces the formation of the dorsal axis of the embryo. In this study, we find that 90 degrees rotation of the egg for various perio...

We have shown in defect experiments that an 8-cell embryo of Xenopus laevis consists of three kinds of cells, that is, animal, vegetal dorsal and vegetal ventral cells, and that cells of different kinds are distinctly different in their developmental capacity. Complete pattern formation occurs in any defect embryo which contains at least two animal, one vegetal dorsal and one vegetal ventral ce...

In zebrafish, as in many animals, maternal dorsal determinants are vegetally localized in the egg and are transported after fertilization in a microtubule-dependent manner. However, the organization of early microtubules, their dynamics and their contribution to axis formation are not fully understood. Using live imaging, we identified two populations of microtubules, perpendicular bundles and ...

Embryos with no dorsal axis were obtained when more than 15% of the egg surface was deleted from the vegetal pole of the early 1-cell embryo of Xenopus laevis. The timing of the deletion in the first cell cycle was critical: dorsal-deficient embryos were obtained when the deletion began before time 0.5 (50% of the first cell cycle) whereas normal dorsal axis usually formed when the deletion was...

Xenopus eggs, artificially fertilized, were prevented from undergoing equilibrium rotation by incubation in medium containing ficoll. Three orientations were selected: normal, with animal pole uppermost; inverted, with vegetal pole away from gravity; and an off-axis orientation, with embryos tilted approximately 90 degrees from the animal-vegetal axis. At blastula stage 8, cells forming the bla...

Localization of nuclear beta-catenin initiates specification of vegetal fates in sea urchin embryos. We have identified SpKrl, a gene that is activated upon nuclear entry of beta-catenin. SpKrl is upregulated when nuclear beta-catenin activity is increased with LiCl and downregulated in embryos injected with molecules that inhibit beta-catenin nuclear function. LiCl-mediated SpKrl activation is...

The experiments described here were designed to reveal the distribution in the frog early embryo of components which are sufficient for specification of the dorsal structures of the embryonic body axis. The approach was to allow cleavage planes to divide the embryo into various well-defined regions and to transplant cells from each region into recipient embryos which would otherwise fail to for...

In Xenopus laevis, dorsal cells that arise at the future dorsal side of an early cleaving embryo have already acquired the ability to cause axis formation. Since the distribution of cytoplasmic components is markedly heterogeneous in an egg and embryo, it has been supposed that the dorsal cells are endowed with the activity to form axial structures by inheriting a unique cytoplasmic component o...