Regeneration of optic nerve fibres from a compound eye to both tecta in Xenopus: evidence relating to the state of specification of the eye and the tectum.

Xenopus with one double-nasal (NN), double-temporal (TT) or double-ventral (VV) eye were induced to regenerate optic fibres from the compound eye to both tecta after metamorphosis. The extent of the projection from the compound eye was then estimated autoradiographically at various intervals after nerve section. The regenerated projection covered the whole of the contralateral tectum but covered only a restricted part of the ipsilateral tectum; thus NN eyes innervated caudomedial tectum only, TT eyes innervated rostrolateral tectum only and VV eyes innervated medial tectum only. Since the tectum ipsilateral to the compound eye also received the projection from the normal eye these results are taken to indicate that NN, TT and VV eyes are unregulated systems in terms of the retinal positional markers that they carry; each such eye bears only the appropriate half-set of such markers.