Supervisor: Prof. Rudolf
Winklbauer.
Vegetal Rotation in Xenopus laevis is an important force generating process during Gastrulation that plays an important part in tissue separation at the Brachet’s cleft, as well as in the internalization of the mesoderm. XRhoA plays a major role in vegetal rotation since a dominant-negative form thereof significantly blocks vegetal rotation. Inhibiting Rho-Activated Kinase (ROK) also causes the same effect. The blastopore never closes in these embryos. Here we show that the DN-XRhoA-induced phenotype can be partially rescued by countering the effects of the Dominant Negative with three times more amount of the Wildtype RNA. Moreover we also found that inhibiting myosin just before vegetal rotation has a weak effect on vegetal cell upwelling. This suggests the involvement of additional players downstream of ROK in the pathway that causes vegetal cell upwelling during gastrulation.