Retinoic Acid Controls the Bilateral Symmetry of Somite Formation in the Mouse Embryo
Abstract
A striking characteristic of vertebrate embryos is their bilaterally symmetric body plan, which is particularly obvious at the level of the somites and their derivatives such as the vertebral column. Segmentation of the presomitic mesoderm must therefore be tightly coordinated along the left and right embryonic sides. We show that mutant mice defective for retinoic acid synthesis exhibit delayed somite formation on the right side. Asymmetric somite formation correlates with a left-right desynchronization of the segmentation clock oscillations. These data implicate retinoic acid as an endogenous signal that maintains the bilateral synchrony of mesoderm segmentation, and therefore controls bilateral symmetry, in vertebrate embryos.
Additional Information
© 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science. 6 December 2004; accepted 9 February 2005; Published online 24 February 2005. We thank B. Schuhbaur for technical help, J. Rossant for RARE-lacZ mice, P. McCaffery for antibody to RALDH2, and K. Storey and O. Pourquié for discussions. Supported by funds from CNRS, INSERM, Collège de France, Ministère de la Recherche, and Institut Universitaire de France. J.V. was supported by fellowships from the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer and Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - Vermot.SOM.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 51934
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.1108363
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20141119-080829188
- CNRS
- INSERM
- Collège de France
- Ministère de la Recherche
- Institut Universitaire de France
- Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer
- Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale
- Created
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2014-11-19Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field