Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Circadian Rhythms and Gene Regulation

Circadian Rhythms and Gene Regulation

The biological clock is involved in many aspects of regulating complex physiology in all animals. It was in 1935 when German zoologists, Hans Kalmus and Erwin Bünning, discovered the existence of circadian rhythm in Drosophila melanogaster. However, the internal molecular mechanisms behind the circadian clock remained a mystery until 1984, when Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young discovered the expression of the Per gene oscillating over a 24-hour cycle. In subsequent...

Determining the Plane of Cell Division

Determining the Plane of Cell Division

Positioning the cell division plane is a critical step during development and cell differentiation, particularly during mitosis when the plane is essential for determining the size of the two daughter cells. The cell division plane is perpendicular to the plane of chromosome segregation, but different types of organisms have different cell division mechanisms to suit their morphology and function.
Animal cells
In animal cells, the cleavage furrow forms along the plane of cell division...

Gastrulation

Gastrulation

Gastrulation establishes the three primary tissues of an embryo: the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. This developmental process relies on a series of intricate cellular movements, which in humans transforms a flat, “bilaminar disc” composed of two cell sheets into a three-tiered structure. In the resulting embryo, the endoderm serves as the bottom layer, and stacked directly above it is the intermediate mesoderm, and then the uppermost ectoderm. Respectively, these tissue strata...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Pushing the limits of automated cell tracking.

Nature methods·2025

Same author

Co-option of an ancestral cloacal regulatory landscape during digit evolution.

Nature·2025

Same author

Unified mass imaging maps the lipidome of vertebrate development.

Nature methods·2025

Same author

An emerging role for tissue plasticity in developmental precision.

Biochemical Society transactions·2024

Same author

Open-top multisample dual-view light-sheet microscope for live imaging of large multicellular systems.

Nature methods·2024

Same author

Open-source microscope add-on for structured illumination microscopy.

Nature communications·2024

Same journal

Restraint of melanoma progression by cells in the local skin environment.

eLife·2026

Same journal

Brawn before bite in endemic Asian eutherian mammals after the end-Cretaceous extinction.

eLife·2026

Same journal

Experimental evolution to thermal stress indicates climate resilience in a cosmopolitan arthropod.

eLife·2026

Same journal

Correlates of protection against African swine fever virus identified by a systems immunology approach.

eLife·2026

Same journal

Retrosplenial cortex enables context-dependent goal-directed sensorimotor transformation.

eLife·2026

Same journal

Direct contact between iPSC-derived macrophages and hepatocytes drives reciprocal acquisition of Kupffer cell identity and hepatocyte maturation.

eLife·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 5, 2025

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells

Published on: July 24, 2014

Cell-autonomous timing drives the vertebrate segmentation clock's wave pattern.

Laurel A Rohde^1,2, Arianne Bercowsky-Rama¹, Guillaume Valentin³

¹Institute of Bioengineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.

|December 13, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The segmentation clock, crucial for vertebrate development, is driven by a cell-intrinsic timer, not external signals. This timer uses elapsed time to control gene expression waves, with external factors like FGF fine-tuning its duration.

Keywords:

cell tracking developmental biology intrinsic timer primary cell culture segmentation clock somitogenesis zebrafish

More Related Videos

Temporal Ordering of Dynamic Expression Data from Detailed Spatial Expression Maps

Temporal Ordering of Dynamic Expression Data from Detailed Spatial Expression Maps

Published on: February 9, 2017

An Optogenetic Method to Control and Analyze Gene Expression Patterns in Cell-to-cell Interactions

An Optogenetic Method to Control and Analyze Gene Expression Patterns in Cell-to-cell Interactions

Published on: March 22, 2018

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 5, 2025

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells

Generation of Dispersed Presomitic Mesoderm Cell Cultures for Imaging of the Zebrafish Segmentation Clock in Single Cells

Published on: July 24, 2014

Temporal Ordering of Dynamic Expression Data from Detailed Spatial Expression Maps

Temporal Ordering of Dynamic Expression Data from Detailed Spatial Expression Maps

Published on: February 9, 2017

An Optogenetic Method to Control and Analyze Gene Expression Patterns in Cell-to-cell Interactions

An Optogenetic Method to Control and Analyze Gene Expression Patterns in Cell-to-cell Interactions

Published on: March 22, 2018

Area of Science:

Developmental Biology
Genetics
Cellular Biology

Background:

Vertebrate body segmentation relies on the segmentation clock, a genetic network producing gene expression waves in the presomitic mesoderm (PSM).
These waves travel through the PSM and halt at segment boundaries, a process crucial for development.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether cell-extrinsic signals are necessary for the segmentation clock's wave pattern.
To determine the role of cell-autonomous timing in segmentation and positional information.

Main Methods:

Culturing single maturing PSM cells to observe their intrinsic oscillatory and arrest dynamics.
Comparing single-cell dynamics with cellular-resolution observations in the developing embryo.
Investigating the effect of exogenous FGF on the cell-intrinsic timer.

Main Results:

Single PSM cells exhibit similar oscillatory slowing and arrest patterns to those in the embryo, indicating cell-autonomy.
A cell-autonomous timer initiates upon cell exit from the tailbud and its duration provides positional information.
Exogenous FGF can alter the timer's duration, suggesting extrinsic regulation.

Conclusions:

The segmentation clock's wave pattern is primarily driven by a cell-autonomous timer, not extrinsic cues.
Elapsed time, dictated by this intrinsic timer, serves as positional information for segmentation.
Extrinsic factors in the embryo modulate the timer's duration and precision, balancing cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic control in development.