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The effects of the messenger for myosin heavy chain (26S mRNA) on postnodal explants of chick embryo blastoderm were studied. Somites do not differentiate in the post-nodal explants of chick embryo cultivated by New’s method. They are induced when postnodal pieces are cultivated in the presence of a 26S mRNA extracted from chick leg muscles or in the presence of myosin. 26S mRNA plus actinomycin D induces small somites. 26S mRNA of duck, rabbit, or trout induce somite structures often built up of cells separated by large spaces and joined around a large myocele. Crayfish 26S mRNA or chick myosin light chain induce columnar cells connected around a cavity. Liver or kidney mRNA do not induce. The induction process can be summarized as follows: 26S mRNA codes for myosin (heavy chain) and the myosin (heavy chain) induces the somites. Induction of somites by mRNA can occur in the presence of actinomycin D but not when there is mRNA plus puromycin. It does occur when myosin acts in the presence of puromycin. Myosin and its heavy chain are present in chick blastoderm before the appearance of somites. Induced somites are able to induce neural plates. We conclude that in normal development somites are induced by myosin.

In chick embryo blastoderm the electrophoretic pattern of myosin light chains changes between the 4-somite and the 19-somite stages (stages 8-13 of Hamburger and Hamilton) from that of non-muscle to muscle myosin. This transition seems to follow the differentiation of the myotomes and to be developmentally regulated.

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