Vegetal rotation

Vegetal rotation is a morphogenetic movement that drives mesoderm internalization during gastrulation in amphibian embryos.

[1] The internalization of vegetal cells prior to gastrulation was first observed in the 1930s by Abraham Mandel Schechtman through the use of vital dye labeling experiments in Triturus torosus embryos.

[2] More recently, Winklbauer and Schürfeld (1999) described the internal movements in more detail using pregastrular explants of Xenopus laevis.

This process is aided by crawling mesodermal cells at the leading edge of the mesendoderm.

[5] While vegetal rotation appears to be important prior to and in the early stages of gastrulation, by stages 10.5–11, vegetal rotation ceases and further involution appears to be driven primarily by cell rearrangements.