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Emergence of Embryo Shape During Cleavage Divisions

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Evo-Devo: Non-model Species in Cell and Developmental Biology

Part of the book series: Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation ((RESULTS,volume 68))

Abstract

Cells are arranged into species-specific patterns during early embryogenesis. Such cell division patterns are important since they often reflect the distribution of localized cortical factors from eggs/fertilized eggs to specific cells as well as the emergence of organismal form. However, it has proven difficult to reveal the mechanisms that underlie the emergence of cell positioning patterns that underlie embryonic shape, likely because a systems-level approach is required that integrates cell biological, genetic, developmental, and mechanical parameters. The choice of organism to address such questions is also important. Because ascidians display the most extreme form of invariant cleavage pattern among the metazoans, we have been analyzing the cell biological mechanisms that underpin three aspects of cell division (unequal cell division (UCD), oriented cell division (OCD), and asynchronous cell cycles) which affect the overall shape of the blastula-stage ascidian embryo composed of 64 cells. In ascidians, UCD creates two small cells at the 16-cell stage that in turn undergo two further successive rounds of UCD. Starting at the 16-cell stage, the cell cycle becomes asynchronous, whereby the vegetal half divides before the animal half, thus creating 24-, 32-, 44-, and then 64-cell stages. Perturbing either UCD or the alternate cell division rhythm perturbs cell position. We propose that dynamic cell shape changes propagate throughout the embryo via cell-cell contacts to create the ascidian-specific invariant cleavage pattern.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Zak Swartz for thoughtful comments that improved the manuscript. We would also like to thank the funding agencies that support our work: the French government funding agency Agence National de la Recherche (ANR “MorCell”: ANR-17-CE 13-0028) and Sorbonne University for supporting the Réseau André Picard. We also thank the CRBM of Institut de la Mer de Villefranche (IMEV) that is supported by EMBRC-France, whose French state funds are managed by the ANR within the Investments of the Future program under reference ANR-10-INBS-02.

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Correspondence to Remi Dumollard .

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McDougall, A., Chenevert, J., Godard, B.G., Dumollard, R. (2019). Emergence of Embryo Shape During Cleavage Divisions. In: Tworzydlo, W., Bilinski, S. (eds) Evo-Devo: Non-model Species in Cell and Developmental Biology. Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation, vol 68. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23459-1_6

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