Publication Date:
2008-08-22
Description:
The cerebral cortex develops through the coordinated generation of dozens of neuronal subtypes, but the mechanisms involved remain unclear. Here we show that mouse embryonic stem cells, cultured without any morphogen but in the presence of a sonic hedgehog inhibitor, recapitulate in vitro the major milestones of cortical development, leading to the sequential generation of a diverse repertoire of neurons that display most salient features of genuine cortical pyramidal neurons. When grafted into the cerebral cortex, these neurons develop patterns of axonal projections corresponding to a wide range of cortical layers, but also to highly specific cortical areas, in particular visual and limbic areas, thereby demonstrating that the identity of a cortical area can be specified without any influence from the brain. The discovery of intrinsic corticogenesis sheds new light on the mechanisms of neuronal specification, and opens new avenues for the modelling and treatment of brain diseases.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Gaspard, Nicolas -- Bouschet, Tristan -- Hourez, Raphael -- Dimidschstein, Jordane -- Naeije, Gilles -- van den Ameele, Jelle -- Espuny-Camacho, Ira -- Herpoel, Adele -- Passante, Lara -- Schiffmann, Serge N -- Gaillard, Afsaneh -- Vanderhaeghen, Pierre -- England -- Nature. 2008 Sep 18;455(7211):351-7. doi: 10.1038/nature07287. Epub 2008 Aug 17.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉IRIBHM (Institute for Interdisciplinary Research), Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18716623" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Axons/drug effects/physiology
;
*Cell Differentiation/drug effects
;
Cell Lineage/drug effects
;
Cerebral Cortex/*cytology/drug effects/*embryology
;
Embryonic Stem Cells/*cytology/drug effects
;
Mice
;
Pyramidal Cells/drug effects
;
Veratrum Alkaloids/pharmacology
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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