Meeting Abstract

P1.2  Jan. 4  Hypergravity and its Effects on the Morphology of Xenopus Embryos REMUS, R.M.*; OLSON, W.M.; WIENS, D.J.; University of Northern Iowa; University of Northern Iowa; University of Northern Iowa remusrm@uni.edu

Neural crest cell (NCC) migration plays an important role in many aspects of development. The goal of this research was to examine the effects of hypergravity on the migration of neural crest cells to form head skeleton cartilage, and on body elongation in Xenopus embryos. To investigate this embryos were centrifuged in 24 well trays placed on a swing-out rotor at 200 rpm, 7X gravity, through five days of development from gastrulation to stage 45 when feeding begins. A control group tray was placed on top of the centrifuge. After centrifugation, the embryos were fixed, cleared and stained with Alcian Blue and photographed for image analysis to obtain length and head cartilage measurements. Typically, centrifuged embryos had shorter body lengths and larger, more frequently asymmetrical head cartilages than controls. Hypergravity affects the development of chondrogenic NCCs and the body length (total length and snout-vent length) of Xenopus embryos.