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Published December 1990 | public
Journal Article

Cell Migration in the Formation of the Pronephric Duct in Xenopus laevis

Abstract

To determine if cell migration is involved in the formation of the pronephric duct in Xenopus, we used morphometry, ablation, and videomicroscopy of vitally stained cells to study duct formation. In St 23–24 (Nieuwkoop and Faber, 1956) embryos, a ridge of cells forms caudal to the pronephric rudiment. The ridge lengthens at approximately the same rate as the embryonic trunk from St 23 to St 31. Ablation experiments demonstrated that the ridge constitutes the pronephric duct rudiment (PDR); when the ridge was ablated at St 23–24, little or no duct formation occurred, whereas a duct formed when the pronephric rudiment was ablated and the ridge left intact. Vital dye injections showed that the PDR forms from the intermediate mesoderm ventral to myotomes IV–VIII. From St 29/30 to St 33/34, the PDR actively elongates along the ventral edge of the myotomes as far as myotome XIV, where it joins the cloaca as the pronephric duct. Videomicroscopy of vitally stained cells showed that the PDR elongates throughout its length and does not incorporate additional cells from the mesoderm over which it elongates. The results strengthen the case for a common mode of pronephric duct formation among amphibian species.

Additional Information

© 1990 Academic Press, Inc. Accepted 2 August 1990. The authors thank Richard Wetts, Nancy O'Rourke, Jes Stollberg, and George Serbedzija for helpful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by Monsanto Corporation and NIH EY08363 (S.F.), and NS17417 and the National Science Foundation (K.L.). The opinions and assertions contained herein are the private ones of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the DoD or the USUHS. The research reported herein was conducted according to the principles set forth in the "Guide for Care and Use of Laboratory Animal Resources," Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, National Research Council, HHS Pub. No. (NIH) 85-23.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 17, 2023