A clock and wavefront model for control of the number of repeated structures during animal morphogenesis

Abstract

Most current models for morphogenesis of repeated patterns, such as vertebrate somites, cannot explain the observed degree of constancy for the number of somites in individuals of a given species. This precision requires a mechanism whereby the lengths of someites (i.e. number of cells per somite) must adjust to the overall size of individual embryos, and one which co-ordinates numbers of somites with position in the whole pattern of body parts. A qualitative model is presented that does admit the observed precision. It is also compatible with experimental observations such as the sequential formation of somites from anterior to posterior in a regular time sequence, the timing of cellular change during development generally, and the increasing evidence for widespread existence of cellular biorhythms. The model involves an interacting “clock” and “wavefront”. The clock is is asmooth cellular oscillator, for which cells throughout the embryo are assumed to be phase-linked. The wavefront is a front of rapid cell change moving slowly down the long axis of the embryo; cells enter a phase of rapid alteration in locomotory and/or adhesive properties at successively later times according to anterior-posterior body position. In the model, the smooth intracellular oscillator itself interacts with the possibility of the rapid primary change or its transmission within cells, thereby gating rhythmically the slow progress of the wavefront. Cells thus enter their rapid change of properties in a succession of separate populations, creating the pattern. It is argued that the elements, a smooth oscillator, a slow wavefront and a rapid cellular change, have biological plausibility. The consequences of combining them were suggested by catastrophe theory. We stress the necessary relation between the present model and the more general concept of positional information (Wolpert, 1969, 1971). Prospective and ongoing experiments stimulated by the model are discussed, and emphasis is placed on how such conceptions of morphogenesis can help reval homology between organisms having developments that are very different to a surface inspection.