| Abstract: | If that portion of a chick embryo destined to form the eye, the lens, part of the brain and the surrounding head region be removed from the chick before the lens has begun to develop, and placed in a liquid culture medium for four days, a structure resembling the lens will form in appropriate proximity to the presumptive retina, and the cells of the lens will synthesize proteins unique to and characteristic of the lens. The time course of morphological development of such explants is here described. In vitro the lens placode dose not invaginate to form a lens vesicle, as it does in ovo. Instead placode cells elongate directly to form fibre cells. The shape of the lens formed in this aberrant manner is remarkably similar to that of normal lens. At least one, and probably all three, of the characteristic crystallins of the lens form in these aberrant lenses, the cytological and biochemical differentiation of which proceeds normally, despite failure of the normal morphogenetic activities of the organ. |
