Meeting Abstract

S1-1.1  Wednesday, Jan. 4  A comparative analysis of gastrulation in Deuterostomians using digital embryos PEYRIéRAS, Nadine; Institut de Neurobiologie Alfred Fessard, CNRS peyriéras@inaf.cnrs-gif.fr

Embryonic development leading from the egg cell to the whole organism can be fully described by the spatio temporal deployment of the cell lineage tree annotated with quantitative parameters for cell membrane and nucleus shape. This data can be automatically extracted from in toto 3D+time imaging of the developing organism and allows answering most of the questions of classical embryology such as cell fate, presumptive organs clonal history, cell proliferation rates, contribution of cell division and its characteristic features to shaping tissues and organs. These questions can be answered by using the digital specimen corresponding to the validated phenomenological reconstruction of 3D+time image data sets. Exploring cohorts of individuals with different genetic and environmental conditions allows integrating the cellular and molecular levels of organization. This approach is expected to serve as a basis for the reconstruction of multi-scale dynamics to decipher emergent and immergent features at different levels of organization. This paradigm is explored for investigating gastrulation processes in Deuterostomian species including the teleostean Danio rerio, the ascidian Phallusia mammillata, the amphioxus Branchiostoma lanceolatum and the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus.