Somite morphogenesis is required for axial blood vessel formation during zebrafish embryogenesis
Abstract
Angioblasts that form the major axial blood vessels of the dorsal aorta and cardinal vein migrate towards the embryonic midline from distant lateral positions. Little is known about what controls the precise timing of angioblast migration and their final destination at the midline. Using zebrafish, we found that midline angioblast migration requires neighboring tissue rearrangements generated by somite morphogenesis. The somitic shape changes cause the adjacent notochord to separate from the underlying endoderm, creating a ventral midline cavity that provides a physical space for the angioblasts to migrate into. The anterior to posterior progression of midline angioblast migration is facilitated by retinoic acid induced anterior to posterior somite maturation and the subsequent progressive opening of the ventral midline cavity. Our work demonstrates a critical role for somite morphogenesis in organizing surrounding tissues to facilitate notochord positioning and angioblast migration, which is ultimately responsible for creating a functional cardiovascular system.
Data availability
Data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supplemental files.
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Author details
Funding
National Science Foundation (IOS 1452928)
- Benjamin Louis Martin
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM124282)
- Benjamin Louis Martin
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM008468)
- Eric Paulissen
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocol (#301537) of Stony Brook University.
Copyright
© 2022, Paulissen 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.
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