The late and dual origin of cerebrospinal fluid-contacting neurons in the mouse spinal cord

PETRACCA, YANINA L.; SARTORETTI, MARIA MICAELA; DI BELLA, DANIELA J.; MARIN-BURGIN, ANTONIA; CARCAGNO, ABEL L.; SCHINDER, ALEJANDRO F.; LANUZA, G

DEVELOPMENT

COMPANY OF BIOLOGISTS LTD

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2016 vol. 143 p. 880 - 891

0950-1991

Considerable progress has been made in understanding themechanisms that control the production of specialized neuronaltypes. However, how the timing of differentiation contributes toneuronal diversity in the developing spinal cord is still a pendingquestion. In this study, we show that cerebrospinal fluid-contactingneurons (CSF-cNs), an anatomically discrete cell type of theependymal area, originate from surprisingly late neurogenic eventsin the ventral spinal cord. CSF-cNs are identified by the expression ofthe transcription factors Gata2 and Gata3, and the ionic channelsPkd2l1 and Pkd1l2. Contrasting with Gata2/3+ V2b interneurons,differentiation of CSF-cNs is independent of Foxn4 and takes placeduring advanced developmental stages previously assumed to beexclusively gliogenic. CSF-cNs are produced from two distinctdorsoventral regions of the mouse spinal cord. Most CSF-cNsderive from progenitors circumscribed to the late-p2 and theoligodendrogenic (pOL) domains, whereas a second subset ofCSF-cNs arises from cells bordering the floor plate. The developmentof these two subgroups of CSF-cNs is differentially controlled byPax6, they adopt separate locations around the postnatal centralcanal and they display electrophysiological differences. Our resultshighlight that spatiotemporal mechanisms are instrumental in creatingneural cell diversity in the ventral spinal cord to produce distinctclasses of interneurons, motoneurons, CSF-cNs, glial cells andependymal cells.