Illumination of vertebrate development by fluorescence live imaging

Development of organism is a dynamic but coordinated process that involves cell proliferation, migration and changes in cell function. Molecular biology and genome science promoted this realm of biomedical science by elucidating various common rules. Fluorescence live imaging has made it possible to quantitatively analyze multicellular process in 4 dimensions, thus providing coherent understandings of distinct levels of description form molecular levels to tissue, organ and organism. Application of this approach has given further insight and comprehension of dynamic process, not mere description of molecular hierarchy, into developmental biology and medicine. In this review paper, we, through introducing current topics in the body patterning, overview how the live imaging of fluorescent proteins has shed new lights on developmental biology.