Introduction of Research

Our main interest is the mechanism how the initial left-right asymmetry is determined in mammalian development. A small patch in a gastrulating mouse embryo called ‘the node’ generates leftward fluid flow by vortical motion of primary cilia on its ventral surface, and the flow direction is critically important to subsequent asymmetric gene expression and final organ arrangement. We are currently focused on the mechanism how the flow is converted to the asymmetric gene expression, i.e. what kind of information is conveyed by the flow, chemical or mechanical or something else, by combining techniques including whole embryo culture, light-sheet microscopy, etc.