This effort has led to considerable progress in defining both the tissue interactions and the cellular and molecular genetic mechanisms mediating the normal development of the nervous systems. Because of intrinsic interest in the nervous system, as well as the implications for both biomedicine and evolutionary biology, neural development has attracted a significant amount of research effort since the beginning of experimental embryology. Understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern the formation of the vertebrate embryonic nervous system has been a longstanding goal of developmental biology. By the late gastrula stage, embryos show misregulation of regional marker genes following neural axis rotation, suggesting that this profound axial plasticity is a transient phenomenon that is lost by late gastrula stages. Our results reveal the presence of a narrow window of time between the mid- and late gastrula stage, during which embryos are able undergo significant recovery following a 180-degree rotation of their neural axis and eventually express appropriate regional marker genes including Otx, Engrailed, and Krox. This study aims to characterize the degree of neural axis plasticity in Xenopus laevis by investigating the response of embryos to a 180-degree rotation of their AP neural axis during gastrula stages by assessing the expression of regional marker genes using in situ hybridization. While the mechanisms governing the regionalization of the nervous system have been extensively studied, relatively less is known about the nature and limits of early neural plasticity of the anterior–posterior neural axis. An important aspect of AP neural axis formation is the inherent plasticity that allows developing cells to respond to and recover from the various perturbations that embryos continually face during the course of development.
The establishment of anterior–posterior (AP) regional identity is an essential step in the appropriate development of the vertebrate central nervous system.
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