Faculty Research 1990 - 1999

The type II activin receptors are essential for egg cylinder growth, gastrulation, and rostral head development in mice.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1999

Keywords

Base-Sequence, Body-Patterning, Crosses-Genetic, DNA-Primers, Female, Fetal-Development, Gastrula, Head, In-Situ-Hybridization, Mesoderm, Mice, Mice-Knockout, Pregnancy, Receptors-Growth-Factor, Signal-Transduction, SUPPORT-NON-U-S-GOVT, SUPPORT-U-S-GOVT-P-H-S, Transforming-Growth-Factor-beta

First Page

157

Last Page

169

JAX Source

Dev Biol 1999 Sep; 213(1):157-69.

Grant

GM52106/GM/NIGMS

Abstract

The type II activin receptors, ActRIIA and ActRIIB, have been shown to play critical roles in axial patterning and organ development in mice. To investigate whether their function is required for mesoderm formation and gastrulation as implicated in Xenopus studies, we generated mice carrying both receptor mutations by interbreeding the ActRIIA and ActRIIB knockout mutants. We found that embryos homozygous for both receptor mutations were growth arrested at the egg cylinder stage and did not form mesoderm. Further analyses revealed that ActRIIA(-/-)ActRIIB(+/-) and about 15% of the ActRIIA(-/-) embryos failed to form an elongated primitive streak, resulting in severe disruption of mesoderm formation in the embryo proper. Interestingly, we observed similar gastrulation defects in ActRIIA(-/-)nodal(+/-) double mutants which, if they developed beyond the gastrulation stage, displayed rostral head defects and cyclopia. These results provide genetic evidence that type II activin receptors are required for egg cylinder growth, primitive streak formation, and rostral head development in mice. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

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