Effect of overexpressing aPKC-CAAX or NLS-aPKC-CT on the neuronal
population born during gastrulation. Xenopus embryos were
unilaterally injected at the 2-cell stage with either aPKC-CAAX or
NLS-aPKC-CT, BrdU saturated at st.10.5 and immunostained for BrdU and for the
neuronal differentiation marker X-MyT1 on sections of tailbud at st.25.
(A) Top row shows anti-aPKC staining (green), with nuclei in blue
(DAPI), to distinguish between injected and non-injected sides for aPKC-CAAX
and NLS-aPKC-CT injections. Bottom row shows adjacent sections co-stained for
BrdU (red) and X-MyT1 (green). Neural progenitors are positive for BrdU only
and appear red, neurons born after BrdU labelling are co-labelled and appear
orange (arrow), and neurons born before st.10.5 (BrdU saturation) appear
green. The number of neurons born before st.10.5 (green) is reduced after
overexpression of either aPKC construct. The dashed lines in circle delineate
the neural tube and the straight dashed lines mark the midline of the neural
tube. (B) Quantification of the results from A.