Changes in location and orientation of mitotic figures in mouse oesophageal epithelium during the development of stratification.
Year: 1970
Type: article
Abstract: When a cell in a simple columnar epithelium undergoes mitosis the nucleus moves towards the apical surface of the epithelium and the plane of cleavage occurs more or less at right angles to the epithelial surface, so that the resulting daughter cells come to lie side by side in the plane of the epithelium. In stratified epithelia, on the other hand, mitotic figures are restricted to the basal surface of the tissue, and give rise to daughter cells which lie in different strata. The location and orientation of mitotic figures during this transition has been examined in the mouse oesophageal epithelium which changes during embryonic development from a layer of simple columnar cells to a stratified squamous cornified layer, and the results obtained indicate that the change over to basally located mitotic nuclei is associated with rotation of the plane of cleavage. The investigation is essentially a continuation of the work of Sauer (1935, 1936, 1937) on the morphology of epithelia which was terminated by his death. Sauer's studies in their turn had their antecedents in the work of several investigators in the latter half of the last century who were interested in the relation of the plane of cell division to the three-dimensional growth of epithelia, e.g. Rauber (1882), Flemming (1885), Merk (1885). More recently, Marques-Pereira & Leblond (1965) published a study of cell migration in the adult rat oesophageal epithelium which touched incidentally on the topic of the plane of cell cleavage. The results of a more general pilot survey of the location and orientation of mitotic figures in a variety of epithelia with which the present author was associated have already been reported (Doig & Smart, 1966). The subject of mitotic orientation is also of some interest outside the epithelial context as the generation of the form of a tissue or organ, or whole animal for that matter, may stem not only from the migration of postmitotic cells to a position away from their site of origin, but also from the laying down of cells in positions predetermined by the plane of division.
Source: Europe PMC (PubMed Central)
Author: I H Smart
Language: English
Subfield: Cell Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W251620332