Study Questions

1. The proposition that gastrulation involves movements of cells from the surface to the interior has been made in several places in this book. With respect to (a) Drosophila, (b) Xenopus, and (c) the chick embryo, which surface cells are actually interiorized and what germ layer or organ do those cells form?

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2. Can you speculate on how the experiments that involve the rotation of the chick epiblast with respect to the hypoblast bear on the issue of a possible separate anterior organizing center in birds?

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3. Chimeric mouse embryos may be exploited to analyze the role of various signals between the embryonic ectoderm (epiblast) and the extra-embryonic ectoderm. Cells from a blastocyst will, of course, form both kinds of ectoderm, but ES cells will contribute only to embryonic ectoderm. There are suggestions in the literature that germ cell development in the mouse may require a signal of BMP4 from the extra-embryonic ectoderm. Can you devise an experiment using chimeras to evaluate this suggestion?

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4. What type of cell junctions would be formed between prospective trophectoderm cells during compaction? What roles(s) might these cell junctions play in establishing different microenvironments around forming ICM cells as distinguished from prospective trophectoderm cells?

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