Spatiotemporal Difference in the Mode of Interkinetic Nuclear Migration in the Mouse Embryonic Intestinal Epithelium

Interkinetic nuclear migration （INM） is a phenomenon in which stem cell nuclei move along the apical-basal axis of the pseudostratified epithelium in synchrony with the cell cycle. INM has been extensively analyzed in the neural epithelia and suggested to play important roles in the regulation of stem/progenitor cell proliferation/differentiation. In the present study, we examined the entire length of mouse intestinal epithelium on the existence and mode of INM at embryonic day （E） 11.5 and 13.5. In addition to the histological and scanning electron microscopic observation of the epithelium, the chronological change in the distribution of the epithelial cell nuclei that are marked with 5-ethynyl-2'- deoxyuridine （EdU） was statistically analyzed with multidimensional scaling method. The results show the existence of INM through the entire intestine, and that there are spatiotemporal differences in the mode of INM between the proximal and distal parts of the intestine as well as between E11.5 and E13.5.