The neurological mutation staggerer is expressed in embryonic cerebellar transplants matured in the anterior eye chamber of normal mice

Abstract

Transplantation of embryonic day 11 cerebellar anlage to the anterior eye chamber of wildtype recipient mice was used to investigate the intrinsic character of the cerebellar mutation staggerer. One phenotypic expression of the staggerer gene in vivo is a postnatal degeneration of cerebellar granule cells. After 43 days of in oculo development cerebellar buds from homozygous staggerer embryos similarly develop into nervous tissues lacking granule cells. On the other hand, transplants of wildtype cerebellar anlagen contain a large population of granule cells. Both the staggerer and wildtype cerebellar transplants had a survival of large neurons, characteristic of Purkinje, Golgi and deep nuclei cells.