Mouse gastrulation from a frog's perspective

Although cleaving vertebrate embryos differ profoundly in shape and size, they all rapidly acquire the same characteristic body pattern during gastrulation. Gastrulating mouse and Xenopus embryos share similar fate maps and gene expression patterns. Furthermore, altering the expression of certain genes and transplantation experiments have comparable consequences, indicating that once underway the molecular mechanisms orchestrating gastrulation may be conserved amongst vertebrates. However, it is less clear that vertebrates necessarily share similar strategies for ensuring the localized induction of mesoderm and hence the initiation of gastrulation.