PUBLICATION
Delta-Notch signaling and lateral inhibition in zebrafish spinal cord development
- Authors
- Appel, B., Givan, L.A., and Eisen, J.S.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-010814-5
- Date
- 2001
- Source
- BMC Developmental Biology 1(1): 13 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Appel, Bruce, Eisen, Judith S.
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Cell Differentiation/physiology
- Embryonic and Fetal Development/physiology
- Humans
- Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins
- Membrane Proteins/biosynthesis
- Membrane Proteins/metabolism
- Membrane Proteins/physiology*
- Nervous System/cytology
- Nervous System/embryology
- Neurons/physiology
- Receptor, Notch1
- Receptors, Cell Surface*
- Signal Transduction/physiology*
- Spinal Cord/embryology*
- Spinal Cord/physiology
- Transcription Factors*
- Zebrafish/embryology*
- Zebrafish/physiology
- Zebrafish Proteins/physiology
- PubMed
- 11495630 Full text @ BMC Dev. Biol.
Citation
Appel, B., Givan, L.A., and Eisen, J.S. (2001) Delta-Notch signaling and lateral inhibition in zebrafish spinal cord development. BMC Developmental Biology. 1(1):13.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Vertebrate neural development requires precise coordination of cell proliferation and cell specification to guide orderly transition of mitotically active precursor cells into different types of post-mitotic neurons and glia. Lateral inhibition, mediated by the Delta-Notch signaling pathway, may provide a mechanism to regulate proliferation and specification in the vertebrate nervous system. We examined delta and notch gene expression in zebrafish embryos and tested the role of lateral inhibition in spinal cord patterning by ablating cells and genetically disrupting Delta-Notch signaling. RESULTS: Zebrafish embryos express multiple delta and notch genes throughout the developing nervous system. All or most proliferative precursors appeared to express notch genes whereas subsets of precursors and post-mitotic neurons expressed delta genes. When we ablated identified primary motor neurons soon after they were born, they were replaced, indicating that specified neurons laterally inhibit neighboring precursors. Mutation of a delta gene caused precursor cells of the trunk neural tube to cease dividing prematurely and develop as neurons. Additionally, mutant embryos had excess early specified neurons, with fates appropriate for their normal positions within the neural tube, and a concomitant deficit of late specified cells. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with the idea that zebrafish Delta proteins, expressed by newly specified neurons, promote Notch activity in neighboring precursors. This signaling is required to maintain a proliferative precursor population and generate late-born neurons and glia. Thus, Delta-Notch signaling may diversify vertebrate neural cell fates by coordinating cell cycle control and cell specification.
Errata / Notes
Erratum in: BMC Developmental Biology 2002, 2:3There is an error in the Materials and methods section of our recent manuscript [1]. In our description of BrdU detection, the phrase "the embryos were treated with 2 N NaOH for 1 hr" should read as "the embryos were treated with 2 M HCI for 1 hr". We regret the mistake.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping