Development 129, 4785-4796 (2002) 4785 Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 2002 DEV2912 Dual origin of the floor plate in the avian embryo Jean-Baptiste Charrier, Françoise Lapointe, Nicole M. Le Douarin and Marie-Aimée Teillet* Institut d’Embryologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire, CNRS and Collège de France, UMR 7128, 49bis Avenue de la Belle Gabrielle, 94736 Nogent-sur-Marne Cedex, France *Author for correspondence (e-mail:
[email protected]) Accepted 30 July 2002 SUMMARY Molecular analysis carried out on quail-chick chimeras, in development, one can experimentally obtain a complete which quail Hensen’s node was substituted for its chick floor plate in the neural epithelium by the inductive action counterpart at the five- to six-somite stage (ss), showed that of either a notochord or a MFP. The competence of the the floor plate of the avian neural tube is composed of neuroepithelium to respond to notochord or MFP signals is distinct areas: (1) a median one (medial floor plate or MFP) restricted to a short time window, as only the posterior-most derived from Hensen’s node and characterised by the same region of the neural plate of embryos younger than 15 ss is gene expression pattern as the node cells (i.e. expression of able to differentiate a complete floor plate comprising MFP HNF3β and Shh to the exclusion of genes early expressed and LFP. Moreover, MFP differentiation requires between in the neural ectoderm such as CSox1); and (2) lateral 4 and 5 days of exposure to the inducing tissues.