Functional analysis of hairy genes in Xenopus neural crest initial specification and cell migration

GUILLERMO VEGA LÓPEZ; MARCELA BONANO; CELESTE TRÍBULO; JUAN P. FERNÁNDEZ; TRISTÁN H. AGÜERO; MANUEL J. AYBAR

DEVELOPMENTAL DYNAMICS

WILEY-LISS, DIV JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2015 vol. 24 p. 988 - 1013

1058-8388

Background: Among the fundamental processes that characterize early stages of embryonic development in vertebrates, the formation of the neural crest is highlighted. This transient and multipotent embryonic cell population is able to generate a variety of tissues and cell types in the adult body. hairy genes are transcription factors that contain a bHLH domain which bind to DNA. In Xenopus three hairy genes are known: hairy1, hairy2a and hairy2b. The requirement of hairy genes was explored in early neural crest development however late requirements of these genes during neural crest maintenance and migration are still unknown. Results: In this work we have extended the analysis of Xenopus hairy genes expression patterns and described new domains of expression. The functional analysis showed that hairy genes are required for the induction, migration of the neural crest and for the control of apoptosis. Moreover, we show that hairy genes function as transcriptional repressors and that are down-regulated by the BMP-Smad signaling and regulated positively by the Notch/Delta-Su(h) pathway. Conclusion: Our results indicate that hairy genes have a functional equivalence between them and that they are required for multiple processes during neural crest development.