Involvement of DRG11 in the development of the primary afferent nociceptive system
Abstract
During development, dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons differentiate in various subpopulations, nociceptive neurons belonging in the small-diameter class. This study addresses the role played by DRG11, a transcription factor expressed in the spinal area of projection of small-diameter DRG neurons, in the development of the primary afferent system. The various subclasses of DRG neurons were compared between wild-type and Drg11^−/− mice at embryonic and postnatal life. In Drg11^−/− mice, numbers of small peptidergic and non-peptidergic DRG neurons were decreased at P7 concomitant with abnormal cell death. Innervation by small DRG neurons was impaired in cutaneous, visceral and deep tissues. Large DRG neurons were not affected. The data point to a role for DRG11 in early postnatal survival of normally generated small primary afferent neurons innervating various kinds of peripheral tissues, which would explain the nociceptive deficits observed in Drg11-null mutant mice.
Additional Information
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. Received 20 March 2006; revised 14 July 2006; accepted 26 July 2006; available online 15 September 2006. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Profs. Dulce Madeira and Manuel Paula-Barbosa for their assistance in the use of stereological methods, Stephan Just for technical advice regarding dissection of the knee joint capsule and Luis Mendonça for Visual Basic programming. This work was supported by FCT grants no. PRAXIS XXI/BD/11519/97 and no. POCTI/1999/NSE/32357.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 55583
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.mcn.2006.07.013
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150306-094744824
- PRAXIS XXI/BD/11519/97
- FCT
- POCTI/1999/NSE/32357
- FCT
- Created
-
2015-03-06Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field