Thread by @TimFulton_1

Today I was meant to be presenting at #BSDBGenSoc2020 but rather, I am preparing to close our lab. However, I am able to share the poster and talk I was meant to be giving today as part of the Plasticity in Developmental Genetics session.

We investigated the requirements of yolk derived signalling and geometry on pattern formation. By explanting the whole zebrafish embryo at the 256 cell stage and cultured them in a basic L15 3% FBS media. The explants elongate after 6 hours, movie from @viktri08 @andattardi

At the protruding end, we observe expression of the mesodermal marker Tbxta (brachyry), Tbx16, Protocaderin8 and Noto

We find that elongation and mesoderm induction is robust to cell mixing as we can disaggregate and reassemble explants and still see tbxta expression. We also observe very high levels of cell mixing within the explants.

We find the posterior is high in Wnt(TCF) activity with the anterior high in BMP activity. The central domain is low in both and hence we observe induction of hindbrain (Krox20)

By inhibiting convergence and extension, we observe that this elongation does not occur and the anterior BMP and posterior TCF domains do not separate. This results in a loss of hindbrain

I've added much more detail to my talk slides (tinyurl.com/yx3s5w5k) and uploaded them to @figshare. We have also shared our poster tinyurl.com/tbutlqc. Find our preprint here – tiny.cc/c70blz.

Please get in touch with your comments or ideas!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this work @BenSteventon2 @AMartinezArias @dd_chaitanya @andattardi @viktri08, Kerim Anlas, @SteventonLab @AMA_lab, @GeneticsCam. Thanks to our funders and @_BSDB_ @Co_Biologists @the_Node for organising this #eMeeting #BSDBGenSoc2020