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A molecular mechanism of symmetry breaking in the early chick embryo

Arias, CF; Herrero, MA; Stern, CD; Bertocchini, F; (2017) A molecular mechanism of symmetry breaking in the early chick embryo. Scientific Reports , 7 , Article 15776. 10.1038/s41598-017-15883-8. Green open access

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Abstract

The first obvious sign of bilateral symmetry in mammalian and avian embryos is the appearance of the primitive streak in the future posterior region of a radially symmetric disc. The primitive streak marks the midline of the future embryo. The mechanisms responsible for positioning the primitive streak remain largely unknown. Here we combine experimental embryology and mathematical modelling to analyse the role of the TGFβ-related molecules BMP4 and Vg1/GDF1 in positioning the primitive streak. Bmp4 and Vg1 are first expressed throughout the embryo, and then become localised to the future anterior and posterior regions of the embryo, where they will, respectively, inhibit or induce formation of the primitive streak. We propose a model based on paracrine signalling to account for the separation of the two domains starting from a homogeneous array of cells, and thus for the topological transformation of a radially symmetric disc to a bilaterally symmetric embryo.

Type: Article
Title: A molecular mechanism of symmetry breaking in the early chick embryo
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-15883-8
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-15883-8
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Science & Technology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Science & Technology - Other Topics, PRIMITIVE STREAK FORMATION, BONE MORPHOGENETIC PROTEIN-4, DEVELOPMENTAL EXPRESSION, TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR, AVIAN EMBRYOS, MOUSE EMBRYO, STEM-CELLS, GENE, VG1, INDUCTION
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Cell and Developmental Biology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10038216
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