spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif spacer gif ARCHIVE ANNOUNCEMENT! spacer gif
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


spacer gif
     Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents    

This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hughes, S. M.
Right arrow Articles by Raff, M. C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hughes, S. M.
Right arrow Articles by Raff, M. C.

Development, Vol 101, Issue 1 157-167, Copyright © 1987 by Company of Biologists

JOURNAL ARTICLES

An inducer protein may control the timing of fate switching in a bipotential glial progenitor cell in rat optic nerve

SM Hughes and MC Raff
Department of Zoology and Cell Biology, University College London, UK.

In rat optic nerve, oligodendrocytes and type-2 astrocytes develop from a common (O-2A) progenitor cell. The first oligodendrocytes differentiate at birth, while the first type-2 astrocytes differentiate in the second postnatal week. We previously showed that the timing of oligodendrocyte differentiation depends on an intrinsic clock in the O-2A progenitor cell. Here we provide evidence that the timing of type-2 astrocyte differentiation, by contrast, may depend on an inducing protein that appears late in the developing nerve. We show that extracts of 3- to 4-week-old, but not 1-week-old, rat optic nerve contain a protein (apparent Mr approximately 25,000) that induces O-2A progenitor cells in culture to express glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), an astrocyte-specific marker in the rat central nervous system.


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 ScienceHome page
M. Raff
Glial cell diversification in the rat optic nerve
Science, March 17, 1989; 243(4897): 1450 - 1455.
[Abstract] [PDF]


© The Company of Biologists Ltd 1987