Zebrafish epiboly as a model of vertebrate embryonic cell rearrangement

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A major question in developmental biology is how cell movements are coordinated to give rise to adult forms, which is integral to the development of an animal from a fertilized egg into a complex adult. In vertebrate embryos, the movement of cells within coherent cell masses plays a prominent role in development, though the mechanisms by which cells move across each other are poorly understood. We study these mechanisms in a simple, experimentally tractable model, the zebrafish. Through our work, we will learn about fundamental cellular properties and mechanisms that control cell movements that are likely to be widely used throughout animal development. This knowledge may ultimately be useful in understanding disease states that result from aberrant cell movements during development or even those occurring later in life, such as metastatic cancer.