Evidence for the fusion of myoblasts in amphibian embryos. I. Homoplastic transplantations of somitic material labeled with tritiated thymidine

In order to obtain more direct evidence for the occurrence of myoblast fusion in the developing amphibian embryo, the following transplantations were performed in vitro . The nuclei of early embryos. Ambystoma tigrinum and A. maculatum , were labeled with tritiated thymidine. Portions of prospective somite areas from these labeled donors were grafted homoplastically and orthotopically into unlabeled hosts of the same, or nearly the same, stage. The stages employed were: neurula, early tail bud, and late tail bud. Hosts were raised until they had developed into more advanced larval forms, fixed, sectioned, and prepared for radioautographic processing according to the customary procedures. The histological preparations contained varying numbers of multinucleate myotubes of a “composite” nature: that is, individual myotubes contained labeled nuclei of the donor, side by side with unlabeled nuclei of the host. There was no doubt that the mononucleate myoblasts of the grafts had fused with those of the host species to form the mutlinucleate composite myotubes. In addition to the above determinations, the method of thymidine labeling has proven to be a satisfactory method of tracing, in the context of the intact organism, somitic cell derivatives up to the feeding larval stage. Mesenchymal cells from the grafted labeled somitic tissues were consequently found in: dermatomic, sclerotomic and intermyotomic locations; the matrix of the dorsal fin; the limb bud; the abdominal muscles.