Changes in cellular composition shape the inductive properties of Hensen’s Node

Tatiane Y. Kanno, Megan Rothstein and Marcos Simoes-Costa ()
Additional contact information
Tatiane Y. Kanno: Harvard Medical School
Megan Rothstein: Harvard Medical School
Marcos Simoes-Costa: Harvard Medical School

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract The establishment of the vertebrate body plan is orchestrated by the organizer, a specialized group of cells with inductive properties that guide axial specification during early development. In avian embryos, organizer cells reside within Hensen’s node, a transient structure located at the tip of the primitive streak. Despite its pivotal role during gastrulation, the cellular architecture of the Hensen’s node remains poorly understood. Here, we show that Hensen’s node is composed of two transcriptionally and functionally distinct organizer populations. In addition to anterior GSC-expressing cells associated with head induction, we identify a posterior population co-expressing organizer and mesodermal genes. These posterior cells exhibit trunk-inducing activity when transplanted into naïve tissue. Our findings reveal that the organizer is a dynamic and spatially compartmentalized structure, and that temporal changes in the relative abundance of anterior and posterior populations underlie shifts in its inductive capacity, ensuring coordinated patterning along the body axis.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63154-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-63154-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63154-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().