Self-Similar Dynamics of Nuclear Packing in the Early Drosophila Embryo

Embryonic development starts with cleavages, a rapid sequence of reductive divisions that result in an exponential increase of cell number without changing the overall size of the embryo. In Drosophila, the final four rounds of cleavages occur at the surface of the embryo and give rise to ∼6000 nuclei under a common plasma membrane. We use live imaging to study the dynamics of this process and to characterize the emergent nuclear packing in this...