... normal situations in order that stress fibers are not formed. At high magnification, we detected radial actin bundles on the hexagonal basal membranes of these axis-turning fibers in fresh lenses ( Fig. S4 ). Previous studies by Bassnett et. al. showed that in chick lens fibers the hexagonal basal...

... a model for lens development for several decades ( Bhat et al., 1980 ; Cui et al., 2004 ; Ogino and Yasuda, 1998 ), studies defining the transcriptome of chick lenses have been limited ( Chauss et al., 2014 ; Disatham et al., 2019 ). The two transcriptomics studies on the embryonic chick lens were...

... profound cardiac and trunk muscle dystrophy, along with lens abnormalities, caused by abrupt terminal differentiation of cardiomyocyte, myoblast and lens fiber cells. Loss of ddx39ab hindered splicing of mRNAs encoding epigenetic regulatory factors, including members of the KMT2 gene family, leading...

...., 2015 ). However, cellular dynamics in the lens epithelium are largely unknown. Classic studies using chick and mammalian lenses revealed that cell proliferation is low in the anterior region and high in the peripheral region of lens epithelium. This highly proliferative peripheral region is called...

... by E11.5 ( Fig. S1E-L ). Even though some Lhx2 staining was observed in both control and mutant lenses, signals were never detected in the nuclei of lens cells. Moreover, Lhx2 mRNA was also never detected in either control or Chx10-Cre;Lhx2 lox/lox lenses (insets in Fig. 2 B-G). As previous work has...

... cells in control and Snf2h cKO P1 lenses. Error bars indicate s.d. of three different animals. There is a marked reduction of Snf2h expression in mutant lens but not in other regions of the eye (G-I). Scale bars: 100 μm. Fig. 1. Expression of Snf2h and initial analysis of the Snf2h lens conditional...

... and lens fiber was performed as described ( Sugiyama and McAvoy, 2012 ). In brief, lenses were dissected from eyeballs. A small tear was made on the posterior capsule. Capsule was then peered off along the tears and lens fiber mass was collected. The remaining capsule containing lens epithelium...

... as a global regulator of LF cell gene expression. Intriguingly, Prox1 also controls the expression of fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) and can bind to their promoters, correlating with decreased downstream signaling through MAPK and AKT in Prox1 mutant lenses. Further, culturing rat lens explants...

... and explant assays. Our results provide evidence that at blastula stages, BMP signals inhibit the acquisition of eye-field character, but from neural tube/optic vesicle stages, BMP signals from the lens are crucial for the maintenance of eye-field character, inhibition of dorsal telencephalic cell identity...

... ). Moreover, conditional inactivation of p53 in the lens resulted in the accumulation of proliferating, undifferentiated cells in the lens fiber cell compartment ( Wiley et al., 2011 ). Overexpression of E2F1 or E2F2 in postmitotic transgenic lenses prompted re-entry into the cell cycle ( Chen et al., 2000...

... of hexagonal cells. The mechanism that controls this morphogenesis from randomly packed cuboidal epithelial cells to highly organized hexagonal fiber cells remains unknown. In Epha2 -/- mouse lenses, equatorial epithelial cells fail to form precisely aligned meridional rows; moreover, the lens fulcrum, where...

... nuclei and in the fiber cells of the WT lens ( Fig. 1C ). By contrast, MAPK1 staining was absent in the Mapk1 CKO lens ( Fig. 1D ). Immunohistochemistry against MAPK1/3 revealed uniform immune reactivity in the epithelial layer and in the fiber cells at a lower level in WT lenses ( Fig. 1E...

... on a complex set of cell movements coordinated between the prospective neural retina, retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and lens. Optic vesicle evagination persists for longer than expected; cells move in a pinwheel pattern during optic vesicle elongation and retinal precursors involute around the rim...

... nuclei was calculated. Average and s.d. were determined using images of three sectioned lenses from different embryos. The maximum and minimum thickness of lens fiber cell nuclei were measured from images of lens sections and the ratio of the maximum to the minimum thickness was calculated for individual...

... ). Control embryos did not produce ectopic lenses and Shroom3 expression was observed at low levels in the developing eye, otic vesicle, branchial arches ( Fig. 6D,F ) and in the lens at stage 25 ( Fig. 6F ). Pax6 -injected embryos produced regions of intense Shroom3 expression that were likely...

..., but development arrests prior to optic cup formation in both the optic neuroepithelium and lens ectoderm. This is accompanied by failure to maintain or initiate the expression patterns of optic-vesicle-patterning and lens-inducing determinants. Of the signaling pathways examined, only BMP signaling is noticeably...

... ). According to tissue recombination experiments( Fujiwara et al., 1994 ), the generation of Pax6 mutant chimeric mice( Collinson et al., 2000 ),lineage-traced ectopic lenses ( Chow et al.,1999 ) and Pax6 conditional deletion( Ashery-Padan et al., 2000 ),Pax6 has an autonomous role in lens development. When...

... the regulatory interactions of these two intrinsic factors with the canonical Wnt pathway. Analysis of the Pax6-deficient lenses revealed a requirement for Pax6 in cell cycle exit and differentiation into lens fiber cells. In addition, Pax6 disruption led to apoptosis of lens epithelial cells. We show that Pax6...

... and analyzed the major enhancer of FoxE3 ( Lens1 ), a gene essential for lens formation that is activated in the presumptive lens ectoderm (PLE) when commitment to the lens fate occurs. Deletion and mutation analyses of the enhancer based on comparison of Xenopus and mammalian sequences and in vitro...

... of phospho-Erk and ERM were also downregulated in Ndst1 -mutant lenses. Taken together, these results establish an important role of Ndst1 function in FGF signaling during lens development. X-gal staining, in situ hybridization and regular immunohistochemistry were performed as previously described ( Zhang...