Supracellular Mechanics and Counter-Rotational Bilateral Flows Orchestrate Posterior Morphogenesis

After gastrulation, the tailbud of Xenopus laevis emerges as a morphogenetic engine. We find that the transition from late neural to early tailbud stages is characterized by large-scale, counter-rotational tissue flows flanking the blastopore, and spatially coupled to dorsal elongation and ventral compression. Live imaging and quantitative flow analysis reveal that these rotations are maintained over ~200 μm, suggesting long-range mechanical coupling between dorsal and ventral tissues. High-resolution confocal microscopy shows fibronectin and laminin fibrils radiating ventrally from the blastopore in spoke-like arrays between ectoderm and mesoderm. Perturbations of cell proliferation, radial intercalation, and mediolateral intercalation fail to abolish these flows, whereas targeted disruption of ventral extracellular matrix integrity severely impairs rotational movement. These results identify a previously unrecognized ventral ECM network as a critical mechanical scaffold in regulating posterior tissue rotation, highlighting the interplay between ECM organization, tissue mechanics, and morphogenetic flow during tailbud development.