| Description |
The development of an organ involves establishment of its shape, which is often critical for proper function. Perhaps the most striking case where organ shape dictates function is in the vertebrate eye, where vision depends on many tissues taking on the correct shape, and becoming correctly oriented relative to all the other surrounding tissues. The basic shape of the eye is set up very early during embryogenesis, through development of the vertebrate optic cup. Disruptions to the early stages of optic cup morphogenesis can have profound effects on subsequent eye development and function. Therefore, understanding how the eye normally takes its shape during these early stages is critical to understand how the eye can become disrupted and cause vision loss or blindness. During optic cup morphogenesis, the developing eye is surrounded by a complex extracellular matrix, but the function of any given component of the extracellular matrix in this morphogenetic process has been unknown until now. Additionally, neural crest cells migrate around the optic cup during its development, but whether these cells are required for optic cup morphogenesis and how they shape the eye has remained mysterious until now. Here, we use the developing zebrafish optic cup to study the contribution of two extracellular matrix proteins during optic cup morphogenesis, laminin and nidogen. We find that both of these proteins are required for specific aspects of optic cup morphogenesis, and find that the neural crest which migrates around the developing eye is partially responsible for generating its extracellular matrix. |
