Warner A, Gurdon J B
J Cell Biol. 1987 Mar;104(3):557-64. doi: 10.1083/jcb.104.3.557.
Muscle gene expression is known to be induced in animal pole cells of a Xenopus blastula after 2-3 h of close contact with vegetal pole cells. We tested whether this induction requires functional gap junctions between vegetal and animal portions of an animal-vegetal conjugate. Muscle gene transcription was assayed with a muscle-specific actin gene probe and the presence or absence of communication through gap junctions was determined electrophysiologically. Antibodies to gap junction protein were shown to block gap junction communication for the whole of the induction time, but did not prevent successful induction of muscle gene activation. The outcome was the same whether communication between inducing vegetal cells and responding animal cells was blocked by introducing antibodies into vegetal cells alone or into animal cells alone. We conclude that gap junctions are not required for this example of embryonic induction.
已知非洲爪蟾囊胚的动物极细胞在与植物极细胞紧密接触2至3小时后，肌肉基因表达会被诱导。我们测试了这种诱导是否需要动物 - 植物结合体中植物部分和动物部分之间功能性间隙连接。用肌肉特异性肌动蛋白基因探针检测肌肉基因转录，并通过电生理学方法确定间隙连接的通信是否存在。间隙连接蛋白抗体在整个诱导时间内均能阻断间隙连接通信，但并未阻止肌肉基因激活的成功诱导。无论是仅将抗体引入植物细胞还是仅引入动物细胞来阻断诱导性植物细胞与反应性动物细胞之间的通信，结果都是相同的。我们得出结论，这种胚胎诱导实例不需要间隙连接。
