Dynamic transcriptional signature and cell fate analysis reveals plasticity of individual neural plate border cells
Abstract
The 'neural plate border' of vertebrate embryos contains precursors of neural crest and placode cells, both defining vertebrate characteristics. How these lineages segregate from neural and epidermal fates has been a matter of debate. We address this by performing a fine-scale quantitative temporal analysis of transcription factor expression in the neural plate border of chick embryos. The results reveal significant overlap of transcription factors characteristic of multiple lineages in individual border cells from gastrula through neurula stages. Cell fate analysis using a Sox2 (neural) enhancer reveals that cells that are initially Sox2+ cells can contribute not only to neural tube but also to neural crest and epidermis. Moreover, modulating levels of Sox2 or Pax7 alters the apportionment of neural tube versus neural crest fates. Our results resolve a long-standing question and suggest that many individual border cells maintain ability to contribute to multiple ectodermal lineages until or beyond neural tube closure.
Additional Information
© 2017 Roellig et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. Received: 17 September 2016; Accepted: 14 March 2017; Published: 29 March 2017. We thank Bertrand Bénazéraf for helpful discussions and critical reading of the manuscript. We thank Laura Kerosuo and Erica J Hutchins for advice on cell culture experiments and comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to Fabienne Pituello for providing work space in her lab for revisions. We thank Hisato Kondoh and Fernando Giraldez for the generous gift of the pCaggs-cSox2 construct, Marcos Simoes-Costa for the gift of pCI-Pax7-IRES-H2B-RFP, Martin Cheung for pCaggs-Sox1-GFP and Michael R Stark for the gift of the pCI-Pax3-H2B-GFP plasmid. SE was funded by the CIRM Bridges Training Grant #TB1-01176. Author contributions: DR, Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Methodology, Writing—original draft, Project administration, Writing—review and editing; JT-C, SE, Investigation, Visualization; MEB, Conceptualization, Resources, Supervision, Funding acquisition, Writing—original draft, Project administration, Writing—review and editing. Competing interests: MEB: Senior editor, eLife. The other authors declare that no competing interests exist.Attached Files
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC5371430
- Eprint ID
- 75646
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20170403-134019209
- HD037105
- NIH
- TB1-01176
- California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)
- Created
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2017-04-03Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field