Morphogenesis of the hatching gland of Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus).

The halibut hatching gland (HG) cells are first observed as a cellular disc in front of the embryonic head around the midpoint of intra ovo development. The disc is subsequently transformed into a loop of increasing diameter as the HG cells migrate over the anterior part of the yolk sac. When the HG disc is transformed into a loop, the density of HG cells is highest at the migratory front. Some HG cells lag behind the migrating front at the early stages of HG development. At maturity, all cells are contained in a narrow belt which is about 10 cells wide. The HG belt structure consists of a monolayer of HG cells, and is maintained while the cells migrate between the two epidermal cell layers. Migration is halted about 2 days before normal hatching when the HG cells reach a destination at about a right angle to on the embryonic axis. Under the scanning electron microscope, the differentiating HG cells protrude as a ridge the yolk sac surface. The HG cells immunostain with antiserum to hatching enzyme when the HG is observed as a crescent structure around the embryonic head. By counting the number of immunostaining cells in composite photos of the entire yolk sac membrane, we found that the HG belt consists of approximately 2000 secretory cells at maturity. This cell number stays fairly constant throughout the period of HG cell migration. Accordingly, mitoses of the halibut HG cells have generally ceased prior to morphogenesis, and cytodifferentiation is already quite advanced when cell migration starts.