The Role of Cell Division Orientation during Zebrafish Early Development

The development of multicellular organisms is dependent on the tight coordination between tissue growth and morphogenesis. The stereotypical orientation of cell divisions has been proposed to be a fundamental mechanism by which proliferating and growing tissues take shape.
However, the actual contribution of stereotypical cell division orientation (SDO) to tissue morphogenesis is unclear. In zebrafish, cell divisions with stereotypical orientation have been implicated in both body axis elongation and neural rod formation, although there is little direct evidence for a critical function of SDO in either of these processes.
Making use of extended time-lapse, multi-photon microscopy and a careful three-dimensional analysis of cell division orientation, we show that SDO is required for neural rod midline formation during neurulation, but dispensable for body axis elongation during gastrulation. Our data indicate that SDO during both gastrulation and neurulation is dependent on the non-canonical Wnt receptor Frizzled 7 (Fz7), and that interfering with cell division orientation leads to severe defects in neural rod midline formation, but not body axis elongation.
These findings suggest a novel function for Fz7 controlled cell division orientation in neural rod midline formation during neurulation. They also shed new light on the field of cell division orientation by uncoupling it from tissue elongation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:24466
Date17 January 2011
CreatorsQuesada Hernandez, Elena
ContributorsHeisenberg, Carl-Philipp, Knust, Elisabeth, Technische Universität Dresden
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typedoc-type:doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, doc-type:Text
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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