Gravit Space Biol Bull 1998 May 01;112:15-21.

Blastopore formation in the animal hemisphere: functional inversion of gastrulation by centrifugation of Xenopus laevis eggs.

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Eggs of Xenopus laevis and many other amphibians contain a gradient of yolk platelets along the animal-vegetal axis. Small platelets predominate in the animal hemisphere, and a boundary between medium and large yolk platelets exists near the equator. The blastopore forms at this boundary at the beginning of gastrulation, in the vegetal hemisphere. Does this boundary have a role in determination of the position of the blastopore, or does cortical information predominate? Past experiments using 1g to invert the egg showed a distinct tendency to form the blastopore in the original vegetal hemisphere. Our experiments, however, have used 20g centrifugation to achieve a more complete inversion of the yolk gradient. The blastopore formed in the original animal hemisphere in >95% of surviving gastrulae, if centrifugation was begun at normalized time 0.20-0.25 of the first cell cycle. Nearly normal larvae (DAI grades 4 and 5) form in 64% of cases (ave. DAI = 3.2). These data support the idea that the position of the blastopore depends on the position of the egg's internal contents rather than cortical determinants.

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