Real-time Imaging of the Somite Segmentation Clock: Revelation of Unstable Oscillators in the Individual Presomitic Mesoderm Cells

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2006 Jan 25

PMID 16432209

Citations 131

Authors

Yoshito Masamizu

Toshiyuki Ohtsuka

Yoshiki Takashima

Hiroki Nagahara

Yoshiko Takenaka

Kenichi Yoshikawa

Hitoshi Okamura

Ryoichiro Kageyama

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Notch signaling components such as the basic helix-loop-helix gene Hes1 are cyclically expressed by negative feedback in the presomitic mesoderm (PSM) and constitute the somite segmentation clock. Because Hes1 oscillation occurs in many cell types, this clock may regulate the timing in many biological systems. Although the Hes1 oscillator is stable in the PSM, it damps rapidly in other cells, suggesting that the oscillators in the former and the latter could be intrinsically different. Here, we have established the real-time bioluminescence imaging system of Hes1 expression and found that, although Hes1 oscillation is robust and stable in the PSM, it is unstable in the individual dissociated PSM cells, as in fibroblasts. Thus, the Hes1 oscillators in the individual PSM cells and fibroblasts are intrinsically similar, and these results, together with mathematical simulation, suggest that cell-cell communication is essential not only for synchronization but also for stabilization of cellular oscillators.

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