First published online January 25, 2006
Development 133, 401e (2006)
© The Company of Biologists Limited
Neural cell lineages: time for change?
The spinal cord is a valuable model system for understanding how neural
cells diversify. But the lineage relationships between the neural stem cells
(NSCs) and their descendents - the motoneurons, oligodendrocytes and
astrocytes - are still unclear. On
p. 581, Capecchi and
colleagues use conditional cell ablation to help shed light on this. A
long-held model proposes that both motoneurons and oligodendrocytes arise from
a common precursor that expresses oligodendrocyte transcription factor (Olig)
proteins. The authors tested this by deleting Olig1-expressing NSCs, by using
Cre to express diphtheria toxin under the control of Olig1 regulation. As
expected, they saw an absence of both motoneurons and oligodentrocytes in this
system, but they also saw the continuous generation (and death) of their
precursor cells, and observed that oligodendrocyte precursors were generated
for much longer than were motoneuron precursors. This refutes the idea that
motoneurons and oligodendrocytes come from a single precursor type, and
instead the authors propose a new `sequential model' to explain their
findings.
Related articles in Development:
- Motoneurons and oligodendrocytes are sequentially generated from neural stem cells but do not appear to share common lineage-restricted progenitors in vivo
- Sen Wu, Yuanyuan Wu, and Mario R. Capecchi
Development 2006 133: 581-590.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
