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Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases

BACKGROUND: Wnt proteins play roles in many biological processes, including axon guidance and cell migration. In the mammalian hindbrain, facial branchiomotor (FBM) neurons undergo a striking rostral to caudal migration, yet little is known of the underlying molecular mechanisms. In this study, we i...

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Autores principales: Vivancos, Valérie, Chen, Ping, Spassky, Nathalie, Qian, Dong, Dabdoub, Alain, Kelley, Matthew, Studer, Michèle, Guthrie, Sarah
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19210786
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1749-8104-4-7
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author Vivancos, Valérie
Chen, Ping
Spassky, Nathalie
Qian, Dong
Dabdoub, Alain
Kelley, Matthew
Studer, Michèle
Guthrie, Sarah
author_facet Vivancos, Valérie
Chen, Ping
Spassky, Nathalie
Qian, Dong
Dabdoub, Alain
Kelley, Matthew
Studer, Michèle
Guthrie, Sarah
author_sort Vivancos, Valérie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Wnt proteins play roles in many biological processes, including axon guidance and cell migration. In the mammalian hindbrain, facial branchiomotor (FBM) neurons undergo a striking rostral to caudal migration, yet little is known of the underlying molecular mechanisms. In this study, we investigated a possible role of Wnts and the planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway in this process. RESULTS: Here we demonstrate a novel role for Wnt proteins in guiding FBM neurons during their rostral to caudal migration in the hindbrain. We found that Wnt5a is expressed in a caudal(high )to rostral(low )gradient in the hindbrain. Wnt-coated beads chemoattracted FBM neurons to ectopic positions in an explant migration assay. The rostrocaudal FBM migration was moderately perturbed in Wnt5a mutant embryos and severely disrupted in Frizzled3 mutant mouse embryos, and was aberrant following inhibition of Wnt function by secreted Frizzled-related proteins. We also show the involvement of the Wnt/PCP pathway in mammalian FBM neuron migration. Thus, mutations in two PCP genes, Vangl2 and Scribble, caused severe defects in FBM migration. Inhibition of JNK and ROCK kinases strongly and specifically reduced the FBM migration, as well as blocked the chemoattractant effects of ectopic Wnt proteins. CONCLUSION: These results provide in vivo evidence that Wnts chemoattract mammalian FBM neurons and that Wnt5a is a candidate to mediate this process. Molecules of the PCP pathway and the JNK and ROCK kinases also play a role in the FBM migration and are likely mediators of Wnt signalling.
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spelling pubmed-26548842009-03-13 Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases Vivancos, Valérie Chen, Ping Spassky, Nathalie Qian, Dong Dabdoub, Alain Kelley, Matthew Studer, Michèle Guthrie, Sarah Neural Dev Research Article BACKGROUND: Wnt proteins play roles in many biological processes, including axon guidance and cell migration. In the mammalian hindbrain, facial branchiomotor (FBM) neurons undergo a striking rostral to caudal migration, yet little is known of the underlying molecular mechanisms. In this study, we investigated a possible role of Wnts and the planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway in this process. RESULTS: Here we demonstrate a novel role for Wnt proteins in guiding FBM neurons during their rostral to caudal migration in the hindbrain. We found that Wnt5a is expressed in a caudal(high )to rostral(low )gradient in the hindbrain. Wnt-coated beads chemoattracted FBM neurons to ectopic positions in an explant migration assay. The rostrocaudal FBM migration was moderately perturbed in Wnt5a mutant embryos and severely disrupted in Frizzled3 mutant mouse embryos, and was aberrant following inhibition of Wnt function by secreted Frizzled-related proteins. We also show the involvement of the Wnt/PCP pathway in mammalian FBM neuron migration. Thus, mutations in two PCP genes, Vangl2 and Scribble, caused severe defects in FBM migration. Inhibition of JNK and ROCK kinases strongly and specifically reduced the FBM migration, as well as blocked the chemoattractant effects of ectopic Wnt proteins. CONCLUSION: These results provide in vivo evidence that Wnts chemoattract mammalian FBM neurons and that Wnt5a is a candidate to mediate this process. Molecules of the PCP pathway and the JNK and ROCK kinases also play a role in the FBM migration and are likely mediators of Wnt signalling. BioMed Central 2009-02-11 /pmc/articles/PMC2654884/ /pubmed/19210786 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1749-8104-4-7 Text en Copyright © 2009 Vivancos et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Vivancos, Valérie
Chen, Ping
Spassky, Nathalie
Qian, Dong
Dabdoub, Alain
Kelley, Matthew
Studer, Michèle
Guthrie, Sarah
Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases
title Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases
title_full Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases
title_fullStr Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases
title_full_unstemmed Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases
title_short Wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the PCP pathway and JNK and ROCK kinases
title_sort wnt activity guides facial branchiomotor neuron migration, and involves the pcp pathway and jnk and rock kinases
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654884/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19210786
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1749-8104-4-7
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