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Intermingling versus clonal coherence during skeletal muscle development: Mosaicism in eGFP/nLacZ‐labeled mouse chimeras
Author(s) -
Eberhard Daniel,
Jockusch Harald
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
developmental dynamics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.634
H-Index - 141
eISSN - 1097-0177
pISSN - 1058-8388
DOI - 10.1002/dvdy.20039
Subject(s) - biology , chimera (genetics) , green fluorescent protein , embryo , extraocular muscles , skeletal muscle , microbiology and biotechnology , anatomy , myocyte , genetics , gene
To study the relative contributions of clonal coherence vs. myoblast intermingling to the formation of mammalian skeletal muscles, enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) and nLacZ labels were used to analyze neonatal and adult mouse embryo aggregation chimeras. The eGFP marker allowed us to estimate absolute levels of the eGFP transgenic parental contributions as well as variances of levels within a chimeric individual; nLacZ served as a counter‐label in neonatal chimeras. In mature chimeric muscle, free intracellular diffusion of eGFP led to an averaging of the eGFP level in individual myofibers. Chimerism, i.e., differing eGFP levels, was evident between corresponding right and left muscles, between adjacent back, body wall, limb (shank, foot), and extraocular muscles and among myofibers within these muscles. Inhomogeneities in muscles far from their somitic origin indicated unbalanced sampling from small founder pools. The results obtained with adult eGFP↔0 chimeras were corroborated by neonatal chimeras with complementary eGFP↔nLacZ labels. Developmental Dynamics 230:69–78, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.