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. 2012 Dec 13;8(12):e1003121. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003121

Figure 8. Long-range Nodal signaling within the ectoderm and between the ectoderm and the endodermal left-right organizer requires Univin.

Figure 8

A, Experimental design to test the role of Univin in long-range signaling of Nodal during establishment of left-right asymmetry. Following injection of the nodal morpholino into the egg, a synthetic nodal mRNA (immune against the morpholino) alone or a mixture of nodal+univin mRNAs were injected into one animal blastomere (presumptive ectoderm) of embryos at the 8-cell stage B, Experimental results. Injection of the nodal morpholino alone abolishes pitx2 expression and causes bilateral expression of sox9. In this nodal morpholino background, local injection of nodal mRNA alone into one blastomere at the 8-cell stage does not rescue pitx2 expression but co-injection of nodal and univin mRNAs efficiently induces pitx2 at a long distance from the injection clone. The fluorescent images show a Nodal morpholino injected larva (RLDX fluorescence) or larvae rescued by injection of nodal mRNA or by a combination of both nodal and univin mRNAs into one blastomere at the 8-cell stage (merged images of RLDX and FLDX fluorescence).