Fig. 7

Germ plasm RNAs are differentially enriched in different regions of the germ plasm. Animal views of embryos fixed at the 4-cell stage (A–L: 60 min p.f.) and the 32-cell stage (M–P: 1.75 hr p.f.) and labeled with FISH to detect different RNA pairs (A–D: vas, dnd; F–H: vas, nos1; I–J: vas, dazl; M–P: nos1, dazl). Left column: overview of merged images, right three columns: higher magnifications of the squared region in the left panels (middle two columns, in the same order as above; rightmost column, merged image with signals corresponding to the second and third columns in red and green, respectively). (A–H) During recruitment at the furrow of the 2- to 4-cells stage embryo, RNAs for dnd, nos1, and vas largely overlap (a slight enrichment in medial regions can be often observed for the nos1 RNA (F–H)). Localization of these three RNAs shows a substantial region of non-overlap with the localization of the dazl RNA (I–L). At the 32-cell stage, the differential enrichment of nos1 and dazl RNAs is maintained (M–P), showing that the germ plasm remains compartmentalized during the early cleavage stages. (A–L) Scale bar in panel L represents 100 μm (left column) and 25 μm (other three columns); (M–P) scale bar in panel P represents 120 μm (M) and 20 μm (N–P).