A simple "neural induction" model with two interacting cleavage-arrested ascidian blastomeres.
A single anterior-animal blastomere, which includes the presumptive neural region in the eight-cell embryo of the Halocynthia, a protochordate, when dissociated, cleavage-arrested with cytochalasin B, and cultured in isolation, differentiated exclusively to epidermal type judging from membrane excitability and immunoreactivity. However, when the same blastomere was cultured in contact with a single anterior-vegetal blastomere, which includes the presumptive notochordal region, it displayed Na spikes and showed no expression of the epidermal antigen, suggesting that "neural induction" resulted in a single cell during the interaction with a single neighboring cell. This simple two-cell system can be used for further studies on the induction mechanism.
Okado
H
H
Department of Neurobiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Takahashi
K
K
D000818:Animals; D001757:Blastomeres / Q000502:physiology*; D002450:Cell Communication; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004627:Embryonic Induction; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007473:Ion Channels / Q000502:physiology; D008954:Models, Biological; D012964:Sodium / Q000378:metabolism; D014561:Urochordata
D007473:Ion Channels; D012964:Sodium