The transcriptional activator form of Gli3 is a key effector during neural crest development in Xenopus embryos

TRISTÁN H. AGUERO; GUILLERMO A. VEGA LÓPEZ; MARÍA BELÉN PALACIO; CELESTE TRÍBULO; MANUEL J. AYBAR

Valparaiso

Congreso; 11th Meeting of the Latin American Society for Developmental Biology (LASDB); 2024

SDB (USA), LASDB

The Hedgehog signaling instructs diffrent cells to properly conduct developmental processes such as inductin, specifiatin, and migratin. We have previously shown that the ligand Indian hedgehog (Ihh) and the transcripcion factor Gli3 are expressed in the neural crest (NC) region. The NC is a multiotent embryonic tisue that migrates along the embryo and gives rise to many cell derivaties, including the peripheral nervous system and most cranial bones and cartiages. We have also shown that the Ihh signaling is essentil for NC development in Xenopus laevis embryos,however, the role of downstream effctors of this signaling remains unclear. In this work we have analyzed in more detail the role of Gli3 in cellular processes and focused our analysis on regulatory aspects of the pathway during NC development. We show gli3 is expressed in NC cells (NCC) throughout neurulatin and acts in a cell autonomous mode during NC migratin. Using morpholinos and CRISPR/Cas9 to block gli3 functin we negatiely affcted the normal development of NCC and their derivaties, and also the increase of NC markers produced by Ihh, indicatig that theIhh signaling pathway transmits informatin to embryonic cells, at least in part, through Gli3. Notoriously, we prove that the actiator form of the Gli3 is an important effctor of Ihh during inductin, maintenance and migratin of NCC. We also provide evidence that Gli3 could both affct ectodermal cell fate and that this gene acts as an antipoptotic factor. In that context, Gli3 interacts with other main pathways during Xenopus early development such as Notch and Wnt, having an essentil role as a transcriptinal actiator during NC development. Our results show that intracellularcomponents of the Ihh/Gli pathway are key regulators of NC inductin in Xenopus embryos.