Movie 2

Anastomosis in a VE-cad morphant embryo
Deconvolved spinning disc confocal movie of a Tg(fli1ep:gal4ff)^ubs3, Tg(UAS:EGFP-UCHD)^ubs18, Tg(kdrl:mCherry-CAAX)s916 embryo injected with VE-cad morpholino. Movie was recorded around 32hpf, anterior to the left. Confocal stacks were acquired every minute. Single channels are shown in inversed contrast (green is EGFP-UCHD and red is mCherry-CAAX on left and right, respectively) and the merged channels are shown in the middle. Two tip cells extend filopodia towards each other. Many transient filopodial interactions are observed as the cell bodies of the two tip cells get closer to each other. Around the 89^th minute, the tip cell on the right hand side establishes contact to the left one over two filopodia simultaneously. These two filopodia appear to be maintained and at the 92^nd minute the two cell bodies touch. As the cell-cell contact expands junctions start to form between the two cells (seen in the EGFP-UCHD channel around the 165^th minute). Cell-cell contact formation appears less efficient compared to wild-type siblings, and moreover, takes generally longer.