Intercellular Bridges in Vertebrate Gastrulation
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Author(s)
Caneparo, Luca
Pantazis, Periklis
Dempsey, William
Fraser, Scott E
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The developing zebrafish embryo has been the subject of many studies of regional patterning, stereotypical cell movements and changes in cell shape. To better study the morphological features of cells during gastrulation, we generated mosaic embryos expressing membrane attached Dendra2 to highlight cellular boundaries. We find that intercellular bridges join a significant fraction of epiblast cells in the zebrafish embryo, reaching several cell diameters in length and spanning across different regions of the developing embryos. These intercellular bridges are distinct from the cellular protrusions previously reported as extending from hypoblast cells (1–2 cellular diameters in length) or epiblast cells (which were shorter). Most of the intercellular bridges were formed at pre-gastrula stages by the daughters of a dividing cell maintaining a membrane tether as they move apart after mitosis. These intercellular bridges persist during gastrulation and can mediate the transfer of proteins between distant cells. These findings reveal a surprising feature of the cellular landscape in zebrafish embryos and open new possibilities for cell-cell communication during gastrulation, with implications for modeling, cellular mechanics, and morphogenetic signaling.
Date Issued
2011-05-25
Date Acceptance
2011-04-13
Citation
PLOS ONE, 2011, 6 (5)
ISSN
1932-6203
Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY OF SCIENCE
Journal / Book Title
PLOS ONE
Volume
6
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2011 Caneparo et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000291006500043&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Science & Technology - Other Topics
ZEBRAFISH GASTRULATION
FLUORESCENT PROTEIN
CELLS
MORPHOGENESIS
MOVEMENTS
DYNAMICS
SEQUENCE
ELEMENT
RED
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e20230
Date Publish Online
2011-05-25