Abstract
Neural crest (NC) cells migrate exclusively into the rostral half of each sclerotome, where they avoid the dermomyotome and the paranotochordal sclerotome. F-spondin is expressed in these inhibitory regions and throughout the caudal halves. In vitro bioassays of NC spreading on substrates of rostral or caudal epithelial-half somites (RS or CS, respectively) revealed that NC cells adopt on RS a fibroblastic morphology, whereas on CS they fail to flatten. F-spondin inhibited flattening of NC cells on RS. Conversely, F- spondin antibodies prevented rounding up of NC cells on CS. Addition of F- spondin to trunk explants inhibited NC migration into the sclerotome, and treatment of embryos with anti-F-spondin antibodies yielded migration into otherwise inhibitory sites. Thus, somite-derived F-spondin is an inhibitory signal involved in patterning the segmental migration of NC cells and their topographical segregation within the RS.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 475-488 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Neuron |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1999 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful to Tom Jessell for helpful suggestions, to Howard Cedar and Joel Yisraeli for critical comments on the manuscript, and to Yuval Cinnamon for helping us with confocal microscopy and with the illustrations. This study was supported by grants from the Israel Science Foundation, the Dysautonomia Foundation, and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation (C. K.) and by the Israel Cancer Research Foundation, the Israel-USA Binational Foundation, and the Israel Science Foundation (A. K.).