infocus #52 December 2018 Quantifying pre-inversion denting in Volvox globator embryos

DOI: 10.22443/rms.inf.1.166

Volvocine algae serve as powerful model organisms in the study of embryonic development. Volvox is a genus of green algae in the family of Volvocaceae that has been used to research the mechanics of cell sheet movementsin order to provide insight into the process of morphogenesis in more complex organisms. Volvox embryos consist of a spherical monolayer of cells (Figure 1A). Seemingly random dents appear across the embryo’s surface (Figure 1B), followed by a circular invagination called the bend region (Figure 1D) at its equator. The embryo eventually turns itself inside-out in a process called inversion (Figure 1C - H)[iii] [iv]. To investigate whether the denting correlates with the bend region position, it is necessary to quantify the spatio-temporal dynamics of the embryonic shape changes.