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Responsiveness to neurturin of subpopulations of embryonic rat spinal motoneuron does not correlate with expression of GFRα1 or GFRα2
Author(s) -
Garcès Alain,
Livet Jean,
Grillet Nicolas,
Henderson Christopher E.,
Delapeyrière Odile
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
developmental dynamics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.634
H-Index - 141
eISSN - 1097-0177
pISSN - 1058-8388
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0177(20010301)220:3<189::aid-dvdy1106>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor , neurturin , proto oncogene proteins c ret , biology , gdnf family of ligands , neurotrophic factors , embryonic stem cell , microbiology and biotechnology , in situ hybridization , receptor , neuroscience , gene expression , genetics , gene
Abstract Glial cell‐line derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and its relative neurturin (NTN) are both potent trophic factors for motoneurons. They exert their biological effects by activating the RET tyrosine kinase in the presence of a GPI‐linked coreceptor, either GFRα1 (considered to be the favored coreceptor for GDNF) or GFRα2 (the preferred NTN coreceptor). By whole‐mount in situ hybridization on embryonic rat spinal cord, we demonstrate that, whereas Ret is expressed by nearly all motoneurons, Gfra 1 and Gfra 2 exhibit complementary and sometimes overlapping patterns of expression. In the brachial and sacral regions, the majority of motoneurons express Gfra1 but only a minority express Gfra2 . Accordingly, most motoneurons purified from each region are kept alive in culture by GDNF. However, brachial motoneurons respond poorly to NTN, whereas NTN maintains as many sacral motoneurons as does GDNF. Thus, spinal motoneurons are highly heterogeneous in their expression of receptors for neurotrophic factors of the GDNF family, but their differing responses to NTN are not correlated with expression levels of Gfra1 or Gfra2 . © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.