Abstract
Astrocytes are one of the most abundant cell types in the mammalian central nervous system, and are known to have a wide variety of physiological functions, including maintenance of neurons, formation of the blood brain barrier, and regulation of synapse functions. Although the migration and positioning of neurons has been extensively studied over the last several decades and many aspects have been uncovered, the process underlying glial development was largely unknown until recently due to the existence of multiple subtypes of glia and the sustained proliferative ability of these cells through adulthood. To overcome these difficulties, new gene transfer techniques and genetically modified mice were developed, and have been gradually revealing when and how astrocytes develop during corticogenesis. In this paper, I review the diversity of astrocytes and summarize our knowledge about their production and migration.
Highlights
Astrocytes are among the most abundant types of glia, and the ratio of astrocytes to neurons has been shown increase with primate evolution (Bass et al, 1971)
In Layer 1 of the primate cerebral cortex, there are densely packed glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)+/CD44+ astrocytes called interlaminar astrocytes (Colombo and Reisin, 2004). These cells extend straight and poorly branched processes that are about a millimeter long into the cortical gray matter, frequently terminating on the blood vessels in Layers 2–4 (Sosunov et al, 2014). This subtype appears after birth, and in the fetal stages the glial constituents in the Layer 1 are similar to that of rodents, and transformation of Layer-1 astrocytes with short processes to interlaminar astrocytes has been suggested (Marín-Padilla, 1995; Colombo et al, 1997)
Astrocytes in the cerebral cortex are produced from the cortical ventricular zone (VZ) or from the ventral forebrain
Summary
Astrocytes are one of the most abundant cell types in the mammalian central nervous system, and are known to have a wide variety of physiological functions, including maintenance of neurons, formation of the blood brain barrier, and regulation of synapse functions. The migration and positioning of neurons has been extensively studied over the last several decades and many aspects have been uncovered, the process underlying glial development was largely unknown until recently due to the existence of multiple subtypes of glia and the sustained proliferative ability of these cells through adulthood To overcome these difficulties, new gene transfer techniques and genetically modified mice were developed, and have been gradually revealing when and how astrocytes develop during corticogenesis.
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