4D time-lapse images of brain and trunk development in the larvacean Oikopleura dioica

The larvacean, Oikopleura dioica is a planktonic chordate, which is an emerging model organism with a short life cycle of 5 days and belongs to tunicates (urochordates). Organ formation in the trunk proceeds in seven hours from hatching of tailbud larvae at three hours after fertilization (hpf) to completion of organ formation in fully functional juveniles that start feeding at 10 hpf and are just miniature of adult form. Development of O. dioica has been described (Nishida, H., 2008 Development of the appendicularian Oikopleura dioica: culture, genome, and cell lineages. Dev. Growth Differ. 50, S239–S256.). The dataset contains 4D (3D+time) time-lapse images that were acquired during larval development using differential interference contrast optics, and wide-field fluorescent microscope, which visualize cell membrane and nuclei of the entire trunk region. In some cases, animal or vegetal hemisphere blastomeres are labelled to trace the descendants. The dataset would be generally utili...