Abstract
The ability of an animal to move and to interact with its environment requires that motoneurons correctly innervate specific muscles. Although many genes that regulate motoneuron development have been identified, our understanding of motor axon branching remains incomplete. We used transcriptional expression profiling to identify potential candidate genes involved in development of zebrafish identified motoneurons. Here we focus on inab, an intermediate filament encoding gene dynamically expressed in a subset of motoneurons as well as in an identified interneuron. We show that inab is necessary for proper axon morphology of a specific motoneuron subtype.
Highlights
For correct locomotor circuitry to form in a developing embryo, motoneuron axons must contact appropriate muscle targets
We focus on an identified interneuron that arises from the progenitor of motoneuron (pMN) domain and can be a sibling to motoneurons, VeLD [23]
NimbleGen microarrays We performed a microarray screen to uncover additional genes that are expressed in zebrafish primary motoneurons (PMNs) and potentially involved in motoneuron development
Summary
For correct locomotor circuitry to form in a developing embryo, motoneuron axons must contact appropriate muscle targets. Motoneurons are classified into subtypes that are based on their axon projections and morphologies, a hallmark of appropriate motoneuron subtype specification. Correct motoneuron development is mediated by expression of genes that allow motoneurons to acquire subtype-specific characteristics, such as axon morphology. A number of genes have been identified with necessary roles in motoneuron development, we still have an incomplete picture of the genes required for motoneuron differentiation and axon morphology. PMNs are especially amenable to study, because they have three distinct subtypes. Each of these subtypes projects an axon to a subtypespecific region in the overlying muscle [2,3] and expresses a number of genes differentially [4,5,6]. Can the mechanisms of PMN subtype specification be addressed genetically in zebrafish, but the genes known to be involved in zebrafish motoneuron specification are conserved across vertebrates
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