Postembryonic neuronal addition in Zebrafish dorsal root ganglia is regulated by Notch signaling
- Authors
- McGraw, H.F., Snelson, C.D., Prendergast, A., Suli, A., and Raible, D.W.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-120705-25
- Date
- 2012
- Source
- Neural Development 7(1): 23 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- McGraw, Hillary, Prendergast, Andrew, Raible, David, Snelson, Corey, Suli, Arminda
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Animals, Genetically Modified
- Ganglia, Spinal/cytology
- Ganglia, Spinal/metabolism*
- Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
- Homeodomain Proteins/genetics
- Homeodomain Proteins/metabolism*
- Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins/genetics
- Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins/metabolism
- Membrane Proteins/genetics
- Membrane Proteins/metabolism
- Nerve Tissue Proteins/genetics
- Nerve Tissue Proteins/metabolism*
- Neural Crest/metabolism
- Neurogenesis/physiology*
- Neurons/cytology
- Neurons/metabolism*
- Receptor, Notch1/genetics
- Receptor, Notch1/metabolism*
- Signal Transduction/physiology
- Zebrafish/metabolism
- Zebrafish Proteins/genetics
- Zebrafish Proteins/metabolism*
- PubMed
- 22738203 Full text @ Neural Dev.
Background
The sensory neurons and glia of the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) arise from neural crest cells in the developing vertebrate embryo. In mouse and chick, DRG formation is completed during embryogenesis. In contrast, zebrafish continue to add neurons and glia to the DRG into adulthood, long after neural crest migration is complete. The molecular and cellular regulation of late DRG growth in the zebrafish remains to be characterized.
Results
In the present study we use transgenic zebrafish lines to examine neuronal addition during postembryonic DRG growth. Neuronal addition is continuous over the period of larval development. Fate mapping experiments support the hypothesis that new neurons are added from a population of resident, neural crest-derived progenitor cells. Conditional inhibition of Notch signaling was used to assess the role of this signaling pathway in neuronal addition. An increase in the number of DRG neurons is seen when Notch signaling is inhibited during both early and late larval development.
Conclusions
Postembryonic growth of the zebrafish DRG comes about in part by addition of new neurons from a resident progenitor population, a process regulated by Notch signaling.