First published online February 10, 2005
Development 132, 505e (2005)
© The Company of Biologists Limited
E-cadherin: expanding the fish embryo
The first morphogenetic movement of teleost embryos is epiboly, when the
embryonic cell mass spreads over the yolk. Kane and co-workers now provide new
insights into this process in their analysis of zebrafish mutants with
arrested epiboly (p.
1105). These mutants were found to have different versions of the
half baked (hab) locus, which the authors report here
encodes the zebrafish homolog of E-cadherin. They identify two cell layers in
the epiblast, the outer of which expresses hab mRNA at higher levels,
and show that during normal epiboly, inner layer cells radially intercalate
into the outer cell layer and flatten, thus expanding the area of the
epiblast. In hab mutants, the interior cells intercalate normally but
fail to flatten and sometimes return to the inner layer. The researchers
conclude that E-cadherin is required for the cell movements of epiboly and
possibly for similar movements in mammalian
embryos.
Related articles in Development:
- Mutations in half baked/E-cadherin block cell behaviors that are necessary for teleost epiboly
- Donald A. Kane, Karen N. McFarland, and Rachel M. Warga
Development 2005 132: 1105-1116.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
