Microsurgery: making an organotypic dorsal marginal zone explant from late gastrula / early neurula.
Channel: Lance Davidson
Date: 2021-09-30

This video details microsurgical manipulations to isolate and visualize morphogenesis of the dorsal marginal zone (DMZ), a planar preparation of multiple germ-layers in the Xenopus embryo. DMZ explants are isolated before involution and maintain planar patterning processes and block radial signals that might be exchanged between pre- and post-involution tissues. The DMZ can be used to study tissue-, cell-, and subcellular-processes relevant to the tissue movement of convergent extension, from patterning to cell behaviors, and their collective biomechanics. Convergent extension is a common large scale collective movement that shapes the body and organs in animals. This explant has been used to study chemical signaling and biomechanics of polarized or anisotropic cell behaviors thought to drive convergent extension. Such anisotropic cell behaviors include mediolaterally polarized protrusions, contractile cell boundaries, and polarized actomyosin contractions. Note: this video was made to accompany a more detailed protocol to be published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Protocols in 2022. Copyright: Lance Davidson.