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Published September 1995 | Published
Journal Article Open

Distribution of tissue progenitors within the shield region of the zebrafish gastrula

Abstract

The zebrafish has emerged as an important model system for the experimental analysis of vertebrate development because it is amenable to genetic analysis and because its optical clarity allows the movements and the differentiation of individual cells to be followed in vivo. In this paper, we have sought to characterize the spatial distribution of tissue progenitors within the outer cell layers of the embryonic shield region of the early gastrula. Single cells were labeled by iontophoretic injection of fluorescent dextrans. Subsequently, we documented their position with respect to the embryonic shield and their eventual fates. Our data show that progenitor cells of the neural, notochordal, somitic and endodermal lineages were all present within the embryonic shield region, and that these progenitors were arranged as intermingled populations. Moreover, close to the midline, there was evidence for significant biases in the distribution of neural and notochord progenitors between the layers, suggesting some degree of radial organization within the zebrafish embryonic shield region. The distributions of tissue progenitors in the zebrafish gastrula differ significantly from those in amphibians; this bears not only on interpretations of mutant phenotypes and in situ staining patterns, but also on our understanding of morphogenetic movements during gastrulation and of neural induction in the zebrafish.

Additional Information

© 1995 Company of Biologists Limited. Accepted 2 June 1995. The authors thank Dr Bill Trevarrow for introducing us to the zebrafish as an experimental system and the Beckman Institute for supporting our research. We also thank Drs J. P. Trinkaus, Ray Keller and Eric Davidson for their encouragement and insights, and Drs J. M. Oppenheimer and W. W. Ballard for their support of our research. Moreover, we thank Dr Andrés Collazo and Katherine Woo for their reading of the manuscript and many valuable discussions. We express our deep gratitude to Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory where we attempted impossible experiments and entertained crazy ideas. Finally, we thank Dian De Sha for her help in editing the manuscript. This research was supported by NIH (HD26864) and NIH Post-Doctoral Training Fellowship 5T32 HD07257.

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August 22, 2023
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October 24, 2023