Eye dominance columns from an isogenic double-nasal frog eye

Abstract

Removing the posterior (temporal) two-thirds of the Xenopus eye bud produces a remaining fragment, which becomes round and grows to a normal adult size eye. Electrophysiological and anatomical analyses showed that each of the two halves of this eye projected across the entire optic tectum in mirror image (double-nasal) fashion, and that fibers from each half-eye sorted out to form eye dominance stripes on the tectum. That both halves of the mirror-symmetric map were derived from only one animal, and from only one side of the head, rules out global markers such as right versus left and histocompatibility differences as causing the formation of these stripes.

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