Loading video.
VIDEO: Time-lapse movies of the polarized fluorescence imaging during the first cleavage of a starfish embryo expressing POLArIS that specifically binds to F-actin in a rotationally constrained manner (the same egg. view more
Credit: Department of Neuroanatomy and Cellular Neurobiology,TMDU
Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), collaborating with scientists from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and RIKEN, develop a novel technique for live-cell fluorescent imaging which leads them to discover a new actin structure in starfish early embryos.
Tokyo, Japan - Monitoring alignments of the building blocks of cells is important to understand how the cells are built. By collaborating with imaging scientists at the MBL, researchers from Japan have developed a new probe which they call POLArIS, allowing real-time imaging of molecular orientations in live cells.
(AGENPARL) – WORCESTER (MASSACHUSETTS), ven 05 febbraio 2021
WOODS HOLE, Mass. Egg cells start out as round blobs. After fertilization, they begin transforming into people, dogs, fish, or other animals by orienting head to tail, back to belly, and left to right. Exactly what sets these body orientation directions has been guessed at but not seen. Now researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have imaged the very beginning of this cellular rearrangement, and their findings help answer a fundamental question.
“The most interesting and mysterious part of developmental biology is the origin of the body axis in animals,” said researcher Tomomi Tani. An MBL scientist in the Eugene Bell Center at the time of the research, Tani is now with Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.
Dr Tomomi Tani, an MBL scientist in the Eugene Bell Center at the time of the research, said: “The most interesting and mysterious part of developmental biology is the origin of the body axis in animals.” The most interesting and mysterious part of developmental biology is the origin of the body axis in animals
Dr Tomomi Tani
His work with MBL colleague Dr Hirokazu Ishii confirm both parents contribute to their offspring’s body orientation.
For the sea squirt animals used in the research, input from the mother sets the back-belly axis while the father performs the same role for the head-tail axis.
Read Time:
Egg cells start out as round blobs. After fertilization, they begin transforming into people, dogs, fish, or other animals by orienting head to tail, back to belly, and left to right. Exactly what sets these body orientation directions has been guessed at but not seen. Now researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have imaged the very beginning of this cellular rearrangement, and their findings help answer a fundamental question. The most interesting and mysterious part of developmental biology is the origin of the body axis in animals, said researcher Tomomi Tani. An MBL scientist in the Eugene Bell Center at the time of the research, Tani is now with Japan s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.