To determine the developmental stage of embryonic mice we apply a geometric morphometric approach to the changing shape of the mouse limb bud as it grows from embryonic day 10 to embryonic day 15 post conception. As the ontogenetic sequence results in the de novo emergence of shape features not present in the early stages, we have created a standard ontogenetic trajectory for limb bud development – a quantitative characterization of shape change during limb morphogenesis. This trajectory of form as a function of time also gives us the reverse function: the ability to infer developmental stage from form, with a typical uncertainty of 2 hours. We introduce eMOSS (embryonic Mouse Ontogenetic Staging System, freely available at limbstaging.embl.es) as a fast, reliable and convenient on-line tool for staging embryos from 2D images of their limb buds, and illustrate its use in phenotyping early limb abnormalities.
A quantitative method for staging mouse embryos based on limb morphometry
These authors contributed equally to this work.
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