Effects of relaxation of mechanical tensions upon the early morphogenesis of Xenopus laevis embryos.

In Xenopus laevis embryos at the early gastrula stage, circumferential tensions of embryonic ectoderm were relaxed by making sagittal or transversal slits in the ventral parts of embryos and inserting into surgical cuts the sectors of homologous tissue from same-stage embryos. Changes in tensile patterns were controlled by measuring cell surface angles. Immediate decreases in surface cell wall tension as related to transversal wall tension were registered. Within minutes of the operation, the lobopodial activity of the inner ectodermal surface increased. The subsequent gastrulation movements were disturbed, germ layers partially mixed and archenteron reduced. The areas of extensive cell columnarization in the ectoderm of operated embryos were less regularly arranged and were extended much more ventrally than in intact embryos. Ventro-dorsal migration and latero-medial intercalation of mesodermal cells also were suppressed. As the operated embryos developed, we observed increases in the total amount of neural tissue, associated sometimes with duplication and even triplication of neural tubes, duplication of otic vesicles, partial fusion of axial rudiments, suppression of mesodermal segmentation and branching or bending of notochord. In the gravest cases the antero-posterior embryo polarity was disturbed. In some cases we observed the formation of axial rudiments in ventral implants. The role of tensions in determining the patterns of morphogenetic cell movements and in establishing the morphological order of normal development is discussed.

The role of external tensions in differentiation of Xenopus laevis embryonic tissues.

Explants extirpated from Xenopus laevis embryos at the early gastrula stage were placed on pieces of hydrophilized latex film which were then either stretched or remained intact. In explants cultivated on the intact films most cells emigrated out of the explants and remained undifferentiated, whereas the explants on the films stretched for 10 min or more developed a normal set of rudiments. In the explants of suprablastoporal zone stretched perpendicularly to the cranio-caudal direction, the axial organs were oriented in the direction of stretching. In the stretched explants, unlike the intact ones, a system of microfilament-associated intercellular contacts was formed within a few minutes.

[Contractility and epithelization in the chick embryo axial mesoderm]. / Sokratimost' i épitelizatsiia v osevoi mezoderme kurinogo zarodysha.

The still unsegemented axial mesoderm was cross cut at different distances form the last somite under the normal physiological conditions, at the low temperature and under the effect of cytochalasin B. Under the normal conditions the inner cells of the axial mesoderm formed a lens-shaped cleft immediately after the operation; this movement was suppressed at the low temperature and absent under the effect of cytochalasin B. This suggests the active contractility of the mesodermal syncytium. The wound margin near the last somite acquired the epithelial structure already within several minutes after the cut, whereas in the more caudal regions it preserved the connective tissue character for a long time. The importance of the axial mesoderm contractility and its ability of epithelization for the somitogenesis is discussed.