Ntrk2/Bdnf cell signaling pathway in neural crest development

GUILLERMO VEGA LÓPEZ; MERCEDES GUADALUPE GARAY; MANUEL J. AYBAR

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires

Workshop; Frontiers in Biosciences 3; 2018

IBIOBA - Max Planck Society

The Neural Crest (NC) is a migratory stem cellspopulation, exclusive of vertebrate organisms and crucial for embryodevelopment. This cells population have the ability to differentiate and giverise to many cellular types such as neurons of the enteric nervous system,sensory and autonomic peripheral nervous system, neuroendocrine cells, all theglial cells, bone, cartilage, connective tissue, among others. The NC originatein ectoderm between neural plate and the prospective epidermis. This cellexperiments the epithelial to-mesenchymal transition, then migrate through theentire embryo from different migration pathways of the anterior-posterior axisto reach their final destination. In our lab we have evidenced the multiplecell signaling pathway who participate in NC formation, migration andspecification during Xenopus laevisembryogenesis. The Ntrk2/Bdnf signaling pathway is essential for Xenopus laevis nervous systemdevelopment. The results evidenced by in situ hybridization analyses prove the spatiotemporalexpression patterns of the two components of this pathways in the prospectiveNC at the neural plate stage. The functional analysis showed that the overexpressionof the mRNA of ntrk2 and bdnf affected the NC cell precursors producinga decrease in the expression of NC marker snail2. Furthermore, the use of a morpholinoantisense oligonucleotide produced an increase in the NC markers snail2 and sox10.In addition, the specific knockdown of the ntrk2 by the use of dominantnegative produced an increment in the expression of this markers. To summarize,we have found that the Ntrk2/Bdnf signaling is essential for NC formation.