Reproductive cell specification during Volvox obversus development

Asexual spheroids of the genus Volvox contain only two cell types: flagellated somatic cells and immotile asexual reproductive cells known as gonidia. During each round of embryogenesis in Volvox obversus, eight large gonidial precursors are produced at the anterior extremity of the embryo. These cells arise as a consequence of polarized, asymmetric divisions of the anteriormost blastomeres at the fourth through nine cleavage cycles, while all other blastomeres cleave symmetrically to yield somatic cell precursors. Blastomeres isolated from embryos at any point between the 2-cell and the 32-cell stage cleaved in the normal pattern and produced the same complement and spatial distribution of cell types as they would have in an intact embryo. This result indicates that intrinsic features control the cleavage patterns and developmental potentials of blastomeres, and rules out any significant role for cell-cell interactions in gonidial specification. When substantial quantities of anterolateral cytoplasm were deleted from uncleaved gonidia or 4-cell stage blastomeres, the cell fragments frequently regulated and embryos were produced with the expected number of asymmetrically cleaving cells and gonidial precursors at their anterior ends. However, when anterior cytoplasm was deleted from 8-cell stage blastomeres, the depleted cells frequently failed to cleave asymmetrically and produced no gonidial precursors. Furthermore, when compression was used to reorient cleavage planes at the fourth division cycle, so that anterior cytoplasm was transmitted to more than the normal number of cells, those cells receiving a significant amount of such cytoplasm cleaved asymmetrically to produce supernumerary gonidial precursors. Together, these last two experiments indicate that blastomeres in the V. obversus embryo acquire (at least by the end of the third cleavage cycle) a polarized organization in which anterior cytoplasm plays a causal role in the process of reproductive-cell specification.