Laser-mediated cell ablation during post-implantation mouse development

BACKGROUND: Laser-mediated cell ablation is a powerful tool that has been used to understand cell fate in a variety of externally developing organisms but has not been used during mammalian post-implantation development. RESULTS: We describe a method pairing laser ablation with murine embryo culture and establish parameters that can be used to precisely ablate cells in the selected field with minimal disruption to adjacent cells or the underlying cell matrix. Ablation of a large domain of endoderm, followed by ∼1 day of culture results in a phenotypically normal embryo and gut tube, indicating that laser ablation is compatible with normal development. We next focused on one of the three precursor populations that have been shown to produce the liver bud. Ablations of a single progenitor domain result in a unilateral delay in the liver bud while the contralateral side is unaffected. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate that laser ablation is a specific and useful technique for studying cell fate in the mouse embryo. This method represents a powerful advance in developmental studies in the mouse and can be used to provide information on the specification of organs, differentiation, cell migration, and vital tissue interactions during development. Developmental Dynamics, 242:1202–1209, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.