...Alyshia Scholl; Yihong Liu; Geraldine Seydoux ABSTRACT In animals with germ plasm, embryonic germline precursors inherit germ granules, condensates proposed to regulate mRNAs coding for germ cell fate determinants. In Caenorhabditis elegans , mRNAs are recruited to germ granules by MEG-3...

...Madeline Cassani; Geraldine Seydoux ABSTRACT In animals with germ plasm, specification of the germline involves ‘germ granules’, cytoplasmic condensates that enrich maternal transcripts in the germline founder cells. In Caenorhabditis elegans embryos, P granules enrich maternal transcripts...

...Kazuko Hanyu-Nakamura; Kazuki Matsuda; Stephen M. Cohen; Akira Nakamura ABSTRACT Specification of germ cells is pivotal to ensure continuation of animal species. In many animal embryos, germ cell specification depends on maternally supplied determinants in the germ plasm. Drosophila polar granule...

...Whitby V. I. Eagle; Daniel K. Yeboah-Kordieh; Matthew G. Niepielko; Elizabeth R. Gavis ABSTRACT Specification and development of Drosophila germ cells depend on molecular determinants within the germ plasm, a specialized cytoplasmic domain at the posterior of the embryo. Localization of numerous...

...Celeste Eno; Timothy Gomez; Diane C. Slusarski; Francisco Pelegri ABSTRACT Zebrafish germ plasm ribonucleoparticles (RNPs) become recruited to furrows of early zebrafish embryos through their association with astral microtubules ends. During the initiation of cytokinesis, microtubules are remodeled...

...Celeste Eno; Francisco Pelegri ABSTRACT During the early embryonic cell cycles, zebrafish germ plasm ribonucleoparticles (RNPs) gradually multimerize and become recruited to the forming furrows. RNPs multimerization occurs prior to and during furrow initiation, as forming aggregates move outward...

...Amanda M. Butler; Dawn A. Owens; Lingyu Wang; Mary Lou King ABSTRACT Xenopus primordial germ cells (PGCs) are determined by the presence of maternally derived germ plasm. Germ plasm components both protect PGCs from somatic differentiation and begin a unique gene expression program. Segregation...

...Philip D. Campbell; Amanda E. Heim; Mordechai Z. Smith; Florence L. Marlow In animals, specification of the primordial germ cells (PGCs), the stem cells of the germ line, is required to transmit genetic information from one generation to the next. Bucky ball (Buc) is essential for germ plasm (GP...

... that it conveys an advantage under selection. At the species level, direct evidence for the advantage of germ plasm is clear. Animal lineages that evolved germ plasm contain between ten and 1000 times more species than sister clades that employ inductive specification ( Crother et al., 2007 ; Johnson et al...

..., in Xenopus and zebrafish embryos primordial germ cells (PGCs) are specified by germ plasm that is inherited from the egg; in mice, Blimp1 expression in the epiblast mediates the commitment of cells to the germ line. How these disparate mechanisms of PGC specification evolved is unknown. Here, in order...

... Oskar initiates the assembly of the germ plasm. In addition to harboring germline determinants, the germ plasm is required for localization and translation of the abdominal determinant nanos . Consequently, failure of oskar localization during oogenesis results in embryos lacking germ cells...

...Maki Shirae-Kurabayashi; Kazuki Matsuda; Akira Nakamura In many animal embryos, germ-cell formation depends on maternal factors located in the germ plasm. To ensure the development of germ cells, germline progenitors must be prevented from differentiating inappropriately into somatic cells...

...Tsubasa Tanaka; Yasuko Kato; Kazuki Matsuda; Kazuko Hanyu-Nakamura; Akira Nakamura Drosophila pole (germ) plasm contains germline and abdominal determinants. Its assembly begins with the localization and translation of oskar ( osk ) RNA at the oocyte posterior, to which the pole plasm must...

... into the posteriorly localized germ plasm during oogenesis. The wasp Nasonia vitripennis ( Nv ) undergoes a long germ mode of development very similar to Drosophila , although the molecular patterning mechanisms employed in these two organisms have diverged significantly, reflecting the independent evolution...

...Thiagarajan Venkatarama; Fangfang Lai; Xueting Luo; Yi Zhou; Karen Newman; Mary Lou King Primordial germ cells (PGCs) in Xenopus are specified through the inheritance of germ plasm. During gastrulation, PGCs remain totipotent while surrounding cells in the vegetal mass become committed to endoderm...

... the endoplasmic reticulum during Drosophila oogenesis. J. Cell Biol . 176 , 941 -952. Mahowald, A. P. ( 2001 ). Assembly of the Drosophila germ plasm. Int. Rev. Cytol . 203 , 187 -213. Markussen, F. H., Michon, A. M., Breitwieser, W. and Ephrussi,A. ( 1995 ). Translational control of oskar...

... as the germ plasm, it is also highly enriched in several factors essential for somatic cell development, and how the postplasm components regulate both germ and somatic cell differentiation remains elusive. Using a vasa homolog, CiVH , and other postplasmic components as markers, we found that the postplasm...

... in the movement of postplasmic/PEM RNAs via relocalization of cER. The CAB also shrank. These results suggest that Hr-POPK-1 plays roles in concentration and positioning of the cER, as well as in the concentration of CAB materials, such as putative germ plasm, in the posterior blastomeres. * Author...

... effect of VegT RNA operates at the level of cytokeratin network-subunit assembly. We next investigated the biological consequences of disruption of the cytokeratin cytoskeleton. Residing at the vegetal cortex are the germinal granules, which are components of the germ plasm that specifies the germ...

...Rachel T. Cox; Allan C. Spradling Maternally inherited mitochondria and other cytoplasmic organelles play essential roles supporting the development of early embryos and their germ cells. Using methods that resolve individual organelles, we studied the origin of oocyte and germ plasm-associated...