Growth cones and Axonal guidance Flashcards
What do growth cones consist of to explore their environment?
‘Fingers’ (Filopodia/Filopodium) and lamella explore the area
- which are made up of different kinds of F-actin
How are the actin bundles different in filolpodia and lamella?
In filopodia, the actin bundles are polarised but in lamella the actin bundles are cross linked to form a net
How do growth cones move?
- F-actin ‘treadmills’ in constant polymerisation at the leading edge, adding actin on to the front and ‘chopping’ it off the back
- Microtubules extend through the whole growth cone for stability but also explore the back areas
- Retrograde flow (towards cell body) helps recycle actin and maintain dynamic stability
How does the movement of growth cones change when it encounters an attractive cue?
- Molecular cutch is engaged and rearward actin treadmilling slows
- Results in forward movement of the filopodium
- An actomyosin-based actin-tubulin link ‘pulls’ microtubules into extending filopodia
What is needed to rearrange the cytoskeleton for forward movement?
The STIMULUS of the cue, attachment of the growth cone to a substrate is not enough
How are growth cones repelled?
- Two types of neurons can be repulsed by each others axons, leading to a growth cone collapse
- They CAN attach but a signal is received that prevents the growth cone from travelling in that direction
- Growth cone collapse destabilises F-actin and the growth cone appears to retract
What are semaphorins?
A family of inhibitory guidance cues
- Can be membrane-bound or secreted
- Secreted semaphorins can cause growth cones to have a collapsing effect on F-actin
- Can be used to channel axons and guide them where to go
What do neurons prefer to grow on and why?
- Prefer to grow on laminin (a substrate) rather than collagen
- Laminin makes it easier for the substrates to bind to their growth cones which directs growth
- Laminin is a growth promoting ECM protein serving as a guidance cue, it also acts as a scaffold providing structural integrity for neuronal tissue
- Blocking receptors for laminin slows down the growth of retinal axons but does not change their direction
(Laminin= permissive NOT guidance)
What is axon growth a balance between?
permissive and non permissive factors
non-permissive factors can channel axons but axons still need permissive factors to grow
What are Ephrins and Ephs and what do they do?
Ephrins = non-permissive contact repulsion factors
Ephs = molecules which detect ephrins (on axons)
GENERATES A REPULSIVE RESPONSE
- helps compartmentalise the embryo into discrete domains
What are the four fources?
- Contact attraction
- Contact repulsion
- Chemoattractant
- Chemorepulsion
Contact attraction and repulsion tell them where they can and cannot go but chemoattractant and chemorepulsion tells them WHICH WAY they can and cannot grow
What was Marysias work looking at chemoattractant and chemorepulsions?
- She looked at whether the organiser cells in the roof and floor plate influence axon growth
- Dorsal spinal chord was laid out and put in gel to observe axon growth
- Found that the floor plate attracts commissural axons towards it by secreting NETRIN (which is an ECM protein like laminin)
- Roof plate secretes BMPs which repel commissural axons (specifically BMP7)
What is the role of Shh in guiding commissural axons?
- Same role as nectrin in that its secreted by the floor plate (as we know) and attracts commissural neurons
- This attraction can be blocked by CYCLOPAMINE which blocks Shh (doesn’t block nectrin)
How was the role of Shh shown experimentally?
- Smoothened is a protein which acts as a receptor for the Shh ligands
- When Smoothened (Smo) is knocked out, Commissural axon guidance is disrupted
What is cre recombinase and loxP
- Bacteriophage encodes a recombinase (cre) which enables it to insert its DNA into host bacteria’s genome
- Cre binds to loxP and can cut and rejoin to another loxP site
- This can be used to specifically delete DNA lying between two loxP sites e.g. in the mouse genome
- Known as a ‘floxed’ gene
What is the benefits of cre recombinase and loxP in tissue specific knockouts and what are the stages?
- Conditional knockouts (gene deletion) at specific places and stages of development
1. The target gene is modified by inducing LoxP sites
2. Modified allele with LoxP is referred to as a floxed allele
3. Mice expressing cre recombinase under the control of a tissue/promoter are then crossed with floxed LoxP mice
4. Recombination occurs resulting in the deletion of the floxed region undergoing a knockout
5. can knockout genes such as the smoothened gene
What is an open book presentation?
- Cut open the hindbrain for example
- Lay it in a collagen gel
- After 18 hours or so add a lipophilic die
- Can be used to trace where axons have gone (anterogradely or retrogradely)
How was an open book preparation used to look at the reprogramming of commissural axons?
- Commissural axons cross the midline
- Experiment wanted to look at whether reprogramming changes once midline is crossed
- This makes sense because floor plate midline secretes chemoattractants (nectrin and Shh) and if it crossed the midline and was still responsive, it would just turn back
- They added an ectopic floor plate before the midline and found through the OBP that the axons are no longer responsive to the original and they just continue past the original floor plate without turning
THIS IS IN A RAT HINDBRAIN
How do commissural axons act differently in the same scenario (open book reprogramming) in the spinal chord?
- So in the hindbrain the axons carry through the original floor plate without turning (already spoken ab)
- But in the spinal chord with the same situation, the commissural axons become sensitive to something INHIBITORY in the floor plate
- The inhibitors are semaphorins and slits
What is the underlying message from the open book presentation experiments for commissural axons in the spinal chord?
Initially, the axons must be sensitive to nectrin but not to semaphorin or slits, once the floor plate has been crossed the sensitivities switch
Explain the robo mutant found in drosophila that effect the commissural pathway?
- Dorsophila mechanisms is highly conserved to the other species
- ‘Roundabout/Robo’ gene encodes a cell surface receptoron axons for slit
- The axons that do not cross the FP have high expression of Slit (obvs to stop them from crossing).
- Commissural axons that do cross the midline low levels before they cross (so they arent repelled from crossing) but high levels after they cross (so they cant recross)
- In Robo mutants, slit is no longer detected by the receptors so all axons go back and forth across the midline hence the name roundabout
Explain the effects of Comm in drosophila
- Comm usually expressed in those neurons that normally cross the midline and is switched off after they cross
- Downregulated once the neuron has crossed
- When Comm is missing, Robo protein is at high levels everywhere and everything goes longitudinally
- Comm encodes a trafficking protein that prevents Robo from reaching the cell surface so the growth cone cannot receive slit inhibitory signals before it leaves
What is axon fasciculation?
Nerves ‘bundled’ together to form a fascicle
How does fasciculation occur?
‘Homophillic’ binding by cell adhesion molecules e.g. faciclin II
Cells expressing faciclin II two bind as faciclin II sticks to itself
