Extracellular materials and determination of neuroectoblast in amphibian gastrula.

The biological activity of the extracellular material (ECM) located in the dorsal and ventral regions of Bufo arenarum is assayed. Ectoblast cells were isolated and cultured with ECM taken from the embryonal regions. The epiblastic cells treated with dorsal ECM, mainly located at the interphase between the invaginating blastoporal lip and the overlying ectoblast differentiated morphologically into neural, mesenchyme and pigment cells. In contrast, control epiplastic cells, cultured either in salt solution or in ventral region ECM, differentiated into ciliated and secretory cell types. The results reported here provide evidence that the dorsal region ECM of the embryo can induce neural differentiation in indeterminate epiblastic cells.