Abstract

Embryonic stem cell cultures are thought to self-organize into embryoid bodies, able to undergo symmetry-breaking, germ layer specification and even morphogenesis. Yet, it is unclear how to reconcile this remarkable self-organization capacity with classical experiments demonstrating key roles for extrinsic biases by maternal factors and/or extraembryonic tissues in embryogenesis. Here, we show that zebrafish embryonic tissue explants, prepared prior to germ layer induction and lacking extraembryonic tissues, can specify all germ layers and form a seemingly complete mesendoderm anlage. Importantly, explant organization requires polarized inheritance of maternal factors from dorsal-marginal regions of the blastoderm. Moreover, induction of endoderm and head-mesoderm, which require peak Nodal-signaling levels, is highly variable in explants, reminiscent of embryos with reduced Nodal signals from the extraembryonic tissues. Together, these data suggest that zebrafish explants do not undergo bona-fide self-organization, but rather display features of genetically encoded self-assembly, where intrinsic genetic programs control the emergence of order.

Data availability

All data generated and analyzed in the manuscript are provided as Source Data Files. The Custom Script used has been uploaded as Source code 1.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Alexandra Schauer

    Life Sciences, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Diana Pinheiro

    Life Sciences, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Robert Hauschild

    Life Sciences, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9843-3522
  4. Carl-Philipp Heisenberg

    Life Sciences, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Klosterneuburg, Austria
    For correspondence
    heisenberg@ist.ac.at
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0912-4566

Funding

H2020 European Research Council (MECSPEC742573)

  • Carl-Philipp Heisenberg

Austrian Academy of Sciences

  • Alexandra Schauer

European Molecular Biology Organization (850-2017)

  • Diana Pinheiro

Human Frontier Science Program (LT000429/2018-L2)

  • Diana Pinheiro

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All animal experiments in this study were performed in strict accordance with the guidelines of the Ethics and Animal Welfare Committee (ETK) in Austria. The respective approval number that covers the performed experiments is 66.018/0010-WF/II/3b/2014.

Copyright

© 2020, Schauer et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 6,328
    views
  • 900
    downloads
  • 47
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Alexandra Schauer
  2. Diana Pinheiro
  3. Robert Hauschild
  4. Carl-Philipp Heisenberg
(2020)
Zebrafish embryonic explants undergo genetically encoded self-assembly
eLife 9:e55190.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55190

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.55190

Further reading

    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
    Thi Thom Mac, Teddy Fauquier ... Thierry Brue
    Research Article

    Deficient Anterior pituitary with common Variable Immune Deficiency (DAVID) syndrome results from NFKB2 heterozygous mutations, causing adrenocorticotropic hormone deficiency (ACTHD) and primary hypogammaglobulinemia. While NFKB signaling plays a crucial role in the immune system, its connection to endocrine symptoms is unclear. We established a human disease model to investigate the role of NFKB2 in pituitary development by creating pituitary organoids from CRISPR/Cas9-edited human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Introducing homozygous TBX19K146R/K146R missense pathogenic variant in hiPSC, an allele found in congenital isolated ACTHD, led to a strong reduction of corticotrophs number in pituitary organoids. Then, we characterized the development of organoids harboring NFKB2D865G/D865G mutations found in DAVID patients. NFKB2D865G/D865G mutation acted at different levels of development with mutant organoids displaying changes in the expression of genes involved on pituitary progenitor generation (HESX1, PITX1, LHX3), hypothalamic secreted factors (BMP4, FGF8, FGF10), epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, lineage precursors development (TBX19, POU1F1) and corticotrophs terminal differentiation (PCSK1, POMC), and showed drastic reduction in the number of corticotrophs. Our results provide strong evidence for the direct role of NFKB2 mutations in the endocrine phenotype observed in patients leading to a new classification of a NFKB2 variant of previously unknown clinical significance as pathogenic in pituitary development.

    1. Developmental Biology
    2. Genetics and Genomics
    Debashish U Menon, Prabuddha Chakraborty ... Terry Magnuson
    Research Article

    We present evidence implicating the BAF (BRG1/BRM Associated Factor) chromatin remodeler in meiotic sex chromosome inactivation (MSCI). By immunofluorescence (IF), the putative BAF DNA binding subunit, ARID1A (AT-rich Interaction Domain 1 a), appeared enriched on the male sex chromosomes during diplonema of meiosis I. Germ cells showing a Cre-induced loss of ARID1A arrested in pachynema and failed to repress sex-linked genes, indicating a defective MSCI. Mutant sex chromosomes displayed an abnormal presence of elongating RNA polymerase II coupled with an overall increase in chromatin accessibility detectable by ATAC-seq. We identified a role for ARID1A in promoting the preferential enrichment of the histone variant, H3.3, on the sex chromosomes, a known hallmark of MSCI. Without ARID1A, the sex chromosomes appeared depleted of H3.3 at levels resembling autosomes. Higher resolution analyses by CUT&RUN revealed shifts in sex-linked H3.3 associations from discrete intergenic sites and broader gene-body domains to promoters in response to the loss of ARID1A. Several sex-linked sites displayed ectopic H3.3 occupancy that did not co-localize with DMC1 (DNA meiotic recombinase 1). This observation suggests a requirement for ARID1A in DMC1 localization to the asynapsed sex chromatids. We conclude that ARID1A-directed H3.3 localization influences meiotic sex chromosome gene regulation and DNA repair.