Characterization of convergent thickening, a major convergence force producing morphogenic movement in amphibians
Abstract
The morphogenic process of convergent thickening (CT) was originally described as the mediolateral convergence and radial thickening of the explanted ventral involuting marginal zone (IMZ) of Xenopus gastrulae (Keller and Danilchik 1988). Here we show that CT is expressed in all sectors of the pre-involution IMZ, which transitions to expressing convergent extension (CE) after involution. CT occurs without CE and drives symmetric blastopore closure in ventralized embryos. Assays of tissue affinity and tissue surface tension measurements suggest CT is driven by increased interfacial tension between the deep IMZ and the overlying epithelium. The resulting minimization of deep IMZ surface area drives a tendency to shorten the mediolateral (circumblastoporal) aspect of the IMZ, thereby generating tensile force contributing to blastopore closure (Shook et al. 2018). These results establish CT as an independent force-generating process of evolutionary significance and provide the first clear example of an oriented, tensile force generated by an isotropic, Holtfreterian/Steinbergian tissue affinity change.
Data availability
No large-scale data set were generated. Data upon which figures are based is included as source data for those figures; specifically, there are files for each of Figure 2C-E; Figure 3C,D; Figure 3-figure supplement 1C,D; Figure 3-figure supplement 2B; Figure 4C; Figure 5C,F; Figure 5-figure supplement 2B-D; Figure 5-figure supplement 2E; Figure 5-figure supplement 3F-J; Figure 6B,C; Figure 7B; Figure 7C; Figure 7D. Additionally, there is also a source data file with the data supporting a statement within the results section.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD R37 HD025594 MERIT award)
- Raymond E Keller
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH RO1 GM099108)
- Paul Skoglund
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH RO1 GM094793)
- Douglas W DeSimone
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35 GM131865)
- Douglas W DeSimone
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR MOP-53075)
- Rudolf Winklbauer
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Lilianna Solnica-Krezel, Washington University School of Medicine, United States
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the 8th Edition of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were manipulated according to an approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols of the University of Virginia. The protocols were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Virginia (protocols #2581 and #1830). All surgery was performed under Tricaine anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering. The animal care and use program is accredited by the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care, International. The University of Virginia has a PHS Assurance on file with the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) (PHS Assurance #A3245-01). The University of Virginia is a USDA registered research facility(USDA Registration # 52-R-0011).
Version history
- Preprint posted: February 23, 2018 (view preprint)
- Received: April 7, 2020
- Accepted: April 10, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: April 11, 2022 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: May 3, 2022 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2022, Shook 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
-
- 1,012
- views
-
- 177
- downloads
-
- 7
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
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)
Further reading
-
- Computational and Systems Biology
- Developmental Biology
Organisms utilize gene regulatory networks (GRN) to make fate decisions, but the regulatory mechanisms of transcription factors (TF) in GRNs are exceedingly intricate. A longstanding question in this field is how these tangled interactions synergistically contribute to decision-making procedures. To comprehensively understand the role of regulatory logic in cell fate decisions, we constructed a logic-incorporated GRN model and examined its behavior under two distinct driving forces (noise-driven and signal-driven). Under the noise-driven mode, we distilled the relationship among fate bias, regulatory logic, and noise profile. Under the signal-driven mode, we bridged regulatory logic and progression-accuracy trade-off, and uncovered distinctive trajectories of reprogramming influenced by logic motifs. In differentiation, we characterized a special logic-dependent priming stage by the solution landscape. Finally, we applied our findings to decipher three biological instances: hematopoiesis, embryogenesis, and trans-differentiation. Orthogonal to the classical analysis of expression profile, we harnessed noise patterns to construct the GRN corresponding to fate transition. Our work presents a generalizable framework for top-down fate-decision studies and a practical approach to the taxonomy of cell fate decisions.
-
- Developmental Biology
- Evolutionary Biology
Despite rapid evolution across eutherian mammals, the X-linked MIR-506 family miRNAs are located in a region flanked by two highly conserved protein-coding genes (SLITRK2 and FMR1) on the X chromosome. Intriguingly, these miRNAs are predominantly expressed in the testis, suggesting a potential role in spermatogenesis and male fertility. Here, we report that the X-linked MIR-506 family miRNAs were derived from the MER91C DNA transposons. Selective inactivation of individual miRNAs or clusters caused no discernible defects, but simultaneous ablation of five clusters containing 19 members of the MIR-506 family led to reduced male fertility in mice. Despite normal sperm counts, motility, and morphology, the KO sperm were less competitive than wild-type sperm when subjected to a polyandrous mating scheme. Transcriptomic and bioinformatic analyses revealed that these X-linked MIR-506 family miRNAs, in addition to targeting a set of conserved genes, have more targets that are critical for spermatogenesis and embryonic development during evolution. Our data suggest that the MIR-506 family miRNAs function to enhance sperm competitiveness and reproductive fitness of the male by finetuning gene expression during spermatogenesis.