The expression of the transcription factor gene Sox2 precisely marks the neural plate in various vertebrate species. We previously showed that the Sox2 expression prevailing in the neural plate of chicken embryos is actually regulated by the coordination of five phylogenetically conserved enhancers having discrete regional coverage, among which the 420-bp long enhancer N-1, active in the node-p...

Neural tube defects (NTD) are clinically important congenital malformations whose molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. The loop-tail (Lp) mutant mouse provides a model for the most severe NTD, craniorachischisis, in which the brain and spinal cord remain open. During a positional cloning approach, we have identified a mutation in a novel gene, Lpp1, in the Lp mouse, providing a strong ca...

We describe how the first G somite pairs form, using the third somites as examples. This history is based upon time-lapse movies of carbon-marked embryos and histological studies by light and electron microscopy of embryos fixed in situ with glutaraldehyde and osmium tetroxide. At head-process stage a continuous sheet of mesoblast occupies the regions of the future third somites. Mesoblast cell...

Somatic development initiates from the epiblast in post-implantation mammalian embryos. Recent establishment of epiblast stem cell (EpiSC) lines has opened up new avenues of investigation of the mechanisms that regulate the epiblast state and initiate lineage-specific somatic development. Here, we investigated the role of cell-intrinsic core transcriptional regulation in the epiblast and during...

The axial tissues of the vertebrate embryo is a term that refers collectively to the floor plate (a cell population that lies at the ventral floor of the neural tube) and the notochord (which is a mesodermal rod of cells located immediately ventral to the floor plate). The notochord and floor plate both secrete the morphogen signal Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) that patterns the dorsoventral axis of the...

The axial tissues of the vertebrate embryo is a term that refers collectively to the floor plate (a cell population that lies at the ventral floor of the neural tube) and the notochord (which is a mesodermal rod of cells located immediately ventral to the floor plate). The notochord and floor plate both secrete the morphogen signal Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) that patterns the dorsoventral axis of the...

The axial tissues of the vertebrate embryo is a term that refers collectively to the floor plate (a cell population that lies at the ventral floor of the neural tube) and the notochord (which is a mesodermal rod of cells located immediately ventral to the floor plate). The notochord and floor plate both secrete the morphogen signal Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) that patterns the dorsoventral axis of the...

Patterns of neuronal differentiation and axon outgrowth were examined in regenerated neural tissue of the hindbrain of the chicken embryo. Specific regions of the hindbrain neural tube corresponding to identified rhombomeres were selectively removed unilaterally by microsurgery. Of the embryos that survived, about 35% exhibited regulative regeneration, wherein the missing hemi-rhombomere was re...

Vehicle license plate recognition is one of the techniques that can be used for the identification of vehicles. It is useful to be applied to many applications such as entrance admission, security, parking control, airport or harbour cargo control, road traffic control, speed control and so on. In this paper, we present an approach of recognising vehicle license plate using the Fuzzy ARTMAP neu...

The axial tissues of the vertebrate embryo is a term that refers collectively to the floor plate (a cell population that lies at the ventral floor of the neural tube) and the notochord (which is a mesodermal rod of cells located immediately ventral to the floor plate). The notochord and floor plate both secrete the morphogen signal Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) that patterns the dorsoventral axis of the...