Eye Morphogenesis And Developmental IHC Study For Antibody RT97 In Xenopus Laevis

Eye morphogenesis in the Xenopus laevis was observed and described in detail. Our attention was paid mainly to retina,lens and cornea development.Meanwhile,we made quantitative analysis of thickness of the pigment epithelium layer and the neural retina in the early developmental periods and total thickness of the retina in the rest developmental periods of Xenopus laevis.And the expression pattern of antibody RT97 in the eye of Xenopus laevis during embryonic development was studied with immunohistochemical method.The results indicated that eye morphogenesis in the Xenopus laevis begins with the formation of optic primordial and soon comes into optic vesicle,which starts with parietal apophysis of diencephalon,and ventriculus opticus extends encephalocoele to form a larger cavum.Lens morphogenesis induces the building up of inner ectoderm of the embryo to form prospective lens placode, during which exine of optic cup thickens.Prospective lens placode continues to thicken to atactic circle with invagination of exine of optic cup,then deviates with ectoderm and invaginates.Prospective corneal epithelium secretes extracellular matrix to internal surface and generates primary corneal stroma,which is induced by retina and/or lens.Then interstitial cells invade in primary corneal stroma and lead to the formation of secondary corneal stroma and corneal endothelium,finally come into transparent corneal,in the early developmental periods,the thickness of the pigment epithelium layer reduced evidently from 63.8±1.9μm to 10.9±1.0μm while the thickness of neural retina increased indistinctively.The orderly differentiation of the two layer of retina is probably related to the space in embryo and the mesenchyme nearby.In the late period the total thickness of retina is increased gradually,from 46.3±2.3μm to 71.8±2.5μm.The results of the immunohistochemistry show that RT97 immunoreactivities express during the embryonic development.This suggests that neurofilament proteins in vertebrates is homologous and antibody RT97 can be researched for a marker of retinal development in Xenopus laevis.