Evidence for specific feedback signals underlying pattern control during vertebrate embryogenesis.

Experiments are described in which sectors including dorsolateral mesoderm from early-neurula-stage amphibian embryos are grafted to the mid-ventral region of gastrula-stage hosts. The grafted tissue pursues an autonomous developmental sequence, though integrated into the host mesodermal mantle, so that such embryos develop a ventral strip of ectopic somite tissue, occasionally with a pronephric formation at one side. When the proportions in which mesodermal tissue has been assigned to the four basic territories of the host's mediolateral pattern are assayed, a significant deficit in somite is characteristically found, though the phenomenon is variable in magnitude. It seems that the size of the host's pronephric territory may be diminished in a similar way, if an earlier differentiating ectopic pronephros is already joined to the system. These phenomena are discussed in relation to theories of biological pattern formation.