embryonic pole cell [FBbt_00053322]

embryonic pole cell

ID: FBbt_00053322

Spherical cell that arises at the posterior pole of the stage 3 embryo (Campos-Ortega and Hartenstein, 1997; Okada, 1998). These cells are formed by nuclei that migrate posteriorly to the pole plasm, which they incorporate as cytoplasm as they bud off to become cells (Okada, 1998). At the blastoderm stage, they are mostly found posterior to the posterior midgut anlage and some cells divide up to two times (Technau and Campos-Ortega, 1986; Campos-Ortega and Hartenstein, 1997). They accompany the posterior midgut primordium as it sinks inwards during gastrulation and as it moves anteriorly during germ band extension (Campos-Ortega and Hartenstein, 1997). At stage 10, pole cells exit the posterior midgut primordium and after some further movements, a subset of the original set of pole cells become incorporated into the gonad by stage 16 (Campos-Ortega and Hartenstein, 1997).