Neural Crest Flashcards
what tissues are derived from neural crest cells?
- neurons and glia
- cartilage and bone
- connectie tissue
- sympatho-adrenal cells
- sensory neurons and glia
- pigment cells
how do neural crest cells migrate?
they migrate away from the dorsal midline when the neural tube fuses - from the area at the interface between the epidermis and the neural plate
what molecule needs to be inhibite to allow neural crest formation?
BMP- they require intermediate levels of BMP
how is BMP inhibited to allow NC formation?
the organiser releases chordin etc to inhibit the formation of the neural plate
what kind of levels of BMP are required for NC to form
intermediate
how was it shown that intermediate levels of BMP are required for NC formation?
- different mutant embryos which expresses different levels of BMP
- wild type has higher levels and other mutants have lower levels
- when you analyse the expression of genes expressed in the neural crest - fkd6
- if you get rid of neural BMP expression completely then the NC disappear- so you need some
- if you increase the level of BMP-intermediate- the entire ectoderm is turned into neural crest cells
- then if you increase even more but less than WT, it reduces again
- need an intermediate level
if you decrease the gradient of BMP, what happens to the NC pool?
it increase in size because the neural crest cell tissue begins earlier because the threshold is reached earlier and the gradient decreases at a slower rate so the tissue within the NC concentration threshold is larger than normal
when you have different concentration gradients specifying different tissues, hood does this occurs?
the concentration may activate different high or low affinity receptors on the same cell
how can you test whether that different levels of BMP- higher levels= one fate, lower levels = another and intermediate levels = NC.
- in the xenopus you can cut the ectoderm and culture it when exposed to different levels of BMP and you show that different levels give rise to different tissues- high for ectoderm, intermediate to neural crest, low for neural tube.
why is it not possible to use immunocytochemistry to measure the gradient of BMP in the ectodermal tissue to see if intermediate levels induce NC populations?
- it is very hard to fix soluble molecules
- the gradient is very slight hard to differentiate
as well as intermediate levels of BMP, what other factor do you need and at what levels?
WNT at higher levels
is the BMP sufficient for neural crest induction?
no- it only induces the neural fold which is a prerequisite for neural crest formation but you also need WNT as well
what did mayor find when trying to form NC from xenopus ectoderm?
that you dont just need int BMP, you need high WNt too
what are the two main morphogens involved in the embryo patterning?
WNT and BMP- WNT is high in post and BMP high in ventral
how does the fate of the neural crest cells change from anterior to posterior?
A-P:
- head and neck
- heart
- skin
- gut
- adrenal gland
- peierphal nervous system
how do cells generally migrate?
a protusion is formed
- once formed, the membrane in the anterior needs to attach to the platform along which the cell the moving by attached to the cell membrane - focal complex formation
- then the trailing edge focal adhesion must undergo dissolution
- then there is myosin based contractility to move the posterior of the cell forward
how is a protrusion formed?
- ## the polymerisation of actin- pushes the membrane outward in the anterior direction
what are the two Rho GTPasses which control the polymerisation of actin
Rac1 and RhoA
which Rho GTPase is at the anterior?
Rac1
which Rho GTPase is at the posterior?
RhoA