Amniote gastrulation in silico

During early development, embryos establish a coordinate system along the head-to-tail, belly-to-back, and left-to-right axes. This process – gastrulation – transforms a uniform group of cells into an elongated, multi-layered body-plan. Although gastrulation differs dramatically between species, remarkable overlaps exist in the overarching principles as well as the underlying mechanisms. Here we review recent studies that use a combined experimental and in silico approach to identify and quantify the mechanisms orchestrating gastrulation across amniotes. From this literature, spanning diverse experimental model systems and in silico frameworks, three self-organising principles recur: (1) initial symmetry breaking; (2) refinement of this broken symmetry into a full head-tail axis; and (3) patterning of pluripotent cells into three distinct germ layers positioned relative to this axis. With the focus on interdisciplinary concepts, we provide an overview of how combining modelling with experiments recently has expanded our understanding of gastrulation and point at potential new directions.