Fig. 2

A pan-caspase inhibitor, Z-VAD-FMK, prevents cell relocation of non-neural ectodermal cells. a Time-lapse montages of the mid-hindbrain neuropore (MHNP) closure in the presence of a pan-caspase inhibitor, Z-VAD-FMK. b Magnified views of the navel in another embryo. Cells (labeled with colors) gathered near the navel failed to be released. c The plot of cell-cell distance between a standard cell (marked with star in (b)) (Y-axis) and each cell along time-points (X-axis). Each color corresponds to those of labeled cells in (b). d Schematic drawing of criteria to define T and coefficient by plotting the cell distances along times. For detail, see Results and Methods sections. e The speed of the backward movement was plotted against moving distance (d) for each cell (n = 27 cells from 2 control embryos, and n = 49 cells from 3 zVAD-treated embryos). Z-VAD-FMK treatment abolished the positive correlation between moving distances and backward movements, suggesting that caspase activation was required for the backward movement. Scale bars: 50 μm