Abstract
The conservation of early cleavage patterns in organisms as diverse as echinoderms and mammals suggests that even in highly regulative embryos such as the mouse, division patterns might be important for development1,2,3,4. Indeed, the first cleavage divides the fertilized mouse egg into two cells: one cell that contributes predominantly to the embryonic part of the blastocyst, and one that contributes to the abembryonic part5,6. Here we show, by removing, transplanting or duplicating the animal or vegetal poles of the mouse egg, that a spatial cue at the animal pole orients the plane of this initial division. Embryos with duplicated animal, but not vegetal, poles show abnormalities in chromosome segregation that compromise their development. Our results show that localized factors in the mammalian egg orient the spindle and so define the initial cleavage plane. In increased dosage, however, these factors are detrimental to the correct execution of division.
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Acknowledgements
We thank L. Clayton for some of the earlier immunostaining of mouse embryos, and S. Frankenberg, M. Savoian, J. Pines, A. Brand and J. Ahringer for discussions. This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (M.Z.-G.), Cancer Research UK (D.M.G.) and the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (M.Z.-G. and D.M.G.).
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Supplementary tables
Table 1. Position of the external marker with respect to the first cleavage plane following removal of the animal or vegetal poles. (PDF 22 kb)
Table 2. Association of cleavage plane with ectopic polar body transplanted at either G2 or M phase.
Table 3. Development of embryos with two animal or two vegetal poles
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Plusa, B., Grabarek, J., Piotrowska, K. et al. Site of the previous meiotic division defines cleavage orientation in the mouse embryo. Nat Cell Biol 4, 811–815 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb860
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb860
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