Coordinated regulation of dorsal bone morphogenetic protein 4 and ventral Sonic hedgehog signaling specifies the dorso-ventral polarity in the optic vesicle and governs ocular morphogenesis through fibroblast growth factor 8 upregulation.

Dorsal and ventral specification in the early optic vesicle plays a crucial role in vertebrate ocular morphogenesis, and proper dorsal-ventral polarity in the optic vesicle ensures that distinct structures develop in separate domains within the eye primordium. The polarity is determined progressively during development by coordinated regulation of extraocular dorsal and ventral factors. In the present study, we cultured discrete portions of embryonic chick brains by preparing anterior cephalon, anterior dorsal cephalon and anterior ventral cephalon, and clearly demonstrate that bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) and Sonic hedgehog (Shh) constitute a dorsal-ventral signaling system together with fibroblast growth factor 8 (FGF8). BMP4 and Shh upregulate Tbx5 and Pax2, as reported previously, and at the same time Shh downregulates Tbx5, while BMP4 affects Pax2 expression to downregulate similarly. Shh induces Fgf8 expression in the ventral optic vesicle. This, in turn, determines the distinct boundary of the retinal pigmented epithelium and the neural retina by suppressing Mitf expression. The lens develops only when signals from both the dorsal and ventral regions come across together. Inverted deposition of Shh and BMP4 signals in organ-cultured optic vesicle completely re-organized ocular structures to be inverted. Based on these observations we propose a novel model in which the two signals govern the whole of ocular development when they encounter each other in the ocular morphogenic domain.