Hypoxia is known to cause a disruption of somitogenesis. If a mouse embryo were temporarily exposed to low levels of oxygen during the final stages of somitogenesis, what would you expect to see in the vertebral column of the newborn mouse

In mammals, hypoxia may cause defects during fetal development. In this case, it would be expected to observe an abnormal development of the caudal (tail) vertebrae

Somitogenesis refers to the process during embryo development in which somites form. These somites are cells that will give rise to structures associated with the vertebrae body plan. Somites form sequentially from the head to the tail, where each new somite forms on the caudal or tail region of the previous one.Somitogenesis represents the first sign of segmentation of the developing vertebrate embryo. During somitogenesis, the unsegmented paraxial or presomitic mesoderm in the trilaminar embryonic stage is segmented in order to form pairs of somites. Moreover, caudal vertebrae refer to the bones that form the tail of vertebrates, which derive from caudal somites.Embryo hypoxia refers to the condition in which the developing embryo does not receive sufficient oxygen (O2) supply. It has been shown that hypoxia during embryo development can increase the incidence of malformations. In this case, embryo hypoxia affects normal caudal somite segmentation, thereby leading to defects in the caudal (tail) vertebrae.

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