mRNA localization studies suggest that murine FGF-5 plays a role in gastrulation

During gastrulation in the mouse, the pluripotent embryonic ectoderm cells form the three primary germ layers, ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. Little is known about the mechanisms responsible for these processes, but evidence from previous studies in amphibians, as well as expression studies in mammals, suggest that signalling molecules of the Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) family may play a role in gastrulation. To determine whether this might be the case for FGF-5 in the mouse embryo, we carried out RNA in situ hybridization studies to determine when and where in the early postimplantation embryo the Fgf-5 gene is expressed. We chose to study this particular member of the FGF gene family because we had previously observed that its pattern of expression in cultures of teratocarcinoma cell aggregates is consistent with the proposal that Fgf-5 plays a role in gastrulation in vivo. The results reported here show that Fgf-5 expression increases dramatically in the pluripotent embryonic ectoderm just prior to gastrulation, is restricted to the cells forming the three primary germ layers during gastrulation, and is not detectable in any cells in the embryo once formation of the primary germ layers is virtually complete. Based on this provocative expression pattern and in light of what is known about the functions in vitro of other members of the FGF family, we hypothesize that in the mouse embryo Fgf-5 functions in an autocrine manner to stimulate the mobility of the cells that contribute to the embryonic germ layers or to render them competent to respond to other inductive or positional signals.