Balmer Sophie, Nowotschin Sonja, Hadjantonakis Anna-Katerina
Developmental Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York.
Dev Dyn. 2016 May;245(5):547-57. doi: 10.1002/dvdy.24392. Epub 2016 Mar 14.
The notochord is a structure common to all chordates, and the feature that the phylum Chordata has been named after. It is a rod-like mesodermal structure that runs the anterior-posterior length of the embryo, adjacent to the ventral neural tube. The notochord plays a critical role in embryonic tissue patterning, for example the dorsal-ventral patterning of the neural tube. The cells that will come to form the notochord are specified at gastrulation. Axial mesodermal cells arising at the anterior primitive streak migrate anteriorly as the precursors of the notochord and populate the notochordal plate. Yet, even though a lot of interest has centered on investigating the functional and structural roles of the notochord, we still have a very rudimentary understanding of notochord morphogenesis. The events driving the formation of the notochord are rapid, taking place over the period of approximately a day in mice. In this commentary, we provide an overview of our current understanding of mouse notochord morphogenesis, from the initial specification of axial mesendodermal cells at the primitive streak, the emergence of these cells at the midline on the surface of the embryo, to their submergence and organization of the stereotypically positioned notochord. We will also discuss some key open questions. Developmental Dynamics 245:547-557, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
脊索是所有脊索动物共有的结构，也是脊索动物门得名的特征。它是一种棒状中胚层结构，沿胚胎的前后长度延伸，与腹侧神经管相邻。脊索在胚胎组织模式形成中起关键作用，例如神经管的背腹模式形成。形成脊索的细胞在原肠胚形成时就已确定。在前原条处产生的轴旁中胚层细胞作为脊索的前体向前迁移，并填充脊索板。然而，尽管人们对研究脊索的功能和结构作用投入了大量关注，但我们对脊索形态发生的了解仍然非常初步。驱动脊索形成的事件很快，在小鼠中大约一天内就会发生。在这篇评论中，我们概述了目前对小鼠脊索形态发生的理解，从原条处轴旁中胚层细胞的最初确定，到这些细胞在胚胎表面中线处的出现，再到它们的下沉以及形成典型定位的脊索的组织过程。我们还将讨论一些关键的未解决问题。《发育动力学》245:547 - 557，2016年。© 2016威利期刊公司。
