Scientists have uncovered how nerve cells in the spinal cord are
organised in precise patterns during embryo development - a finding
that could give insight into regenerative medicine.
As embryos grow and develop they need the right cell types to
end up in the right places inside forming organs. This is
particularly important in the spinal cord where different nerve
cell types must be accurately positioned so that circuits can
assemble properly to control muscle movement. But until now the
mechanism underlying nerve cell organisation in the spinal cord has
remained poorly understood.
In a study published in Science, researchers at the
Francis Crick Institute, the Institute of Science and Technology
(Austria) and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(Switzerland) report that cells destined to become nerve cells in
developing mouse embryos use two different signals spreading from
opposite sides of the spinal cord - the back and belly side - to
measure their position accurately. Based on this map, they turn
into the appropriate nerve cell type. The research was funded by
the European Research Council and Wellcome.
The team of biologists, physicists and engineers found that the
amounts of the two signals originating from the back and belly
sides of the body affect gene activity in developing nerve cells.
Based on this gene activity in early development, the cells turn
into the appropriate nerve cell type for that position in the
spinal cord.
"We've made an important step in understanding how the diverse
cell types in the spinal cord of a developing embryo are organised
in a precise spatial pattern. The quantitative measurements and new
experimental techniques we used, as well as the combined effort of
biologists, physicists and engineers were key. This allowed us to
gain new insight into the exquisite accuracy of embryonic
development and revealed that cells have remarkable ability of to
orchestrate precise tissue development," says Anna Kicheva, Group
Leader at IST Austria.
"We have shed light on the long-standing question of how
developing tissues produce the right cells in the right place in
the right numbers," says James Briscoe, Group Leader at the Francis
Crick Institute. "It's likely that similar strategies are used in
other developing tissues and our findings might be relevant to
these cases. In the long run this will help inform the use of stem
cells in approaches such as tissue engineering and regenerative
medicine. However, there is still much more to learn and we need to
continue developing these interdisciplinary collaborations to
further our biological understanding."
The paper 'Decoding of position in the developing neural tube
from antiparallel morphogen gradients' is published inScience.