Journal
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY
Volume 529, Issue 3, Pages 553-575Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1002/cne.24965
Keywords
arcuate neurons; electron microscopy; fluorescence microscopy; glia-neuron communication; hypothalamus; tanycytes
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Funding
- Novartis Foundation
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Forderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- Novartis Foundation for medical-biological research
- Swiss National Science Foundation
- University of Lausanne
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The study investigates the neuroanatomical associations between tanycytes and neural cells, particularly in the arcuate nucleus. Tanycytes were found to have subcellular protrusions contacting different neural cells, including NPY and POMC neurons in the arcuate nucleus. The protrusions were observed to contain ribosomes, mitochondria, vesicles, and transporters, indicating dense communications between tanycytes, neurons, and blood vessels.
Tanycytes are highly specialized ependymal cells that line the bottom and the lateral walls of the third ventricle. In contact with the cerebrospinal fluid through their cell bodies, they send processes into the arcuate nucleus, the ventromedial nucleus, and the dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus. In the present work, we combined transgenic and immunohistochemical approaches to investigate the neuroanatomical associations between tanycytes and neural cells present in the hypothalamic parenchyma, in particular in the arcuate nucleus. The specific expression of tdTomato in tanycytes first allowed the observation of peculiar subcellular protrusions along tanycyte processes and at their endfeet such as spines, swelling, en passant boutons, boutons, or claws. Interestingly, these protrusions contact different neural cells in the brain parenchyma including blood vessels and neurons, and in particular NPY and POMC neurons in the arcuate nucleus. Using both fluorescent and electron microscopy, we finally observed that these tanycyte protrusions contain ribosomes, mitochondria, diverse vesicles, and transporters, suggesting dense tanycyte/neuron and tanycyte/blood vessel communications. Altogether, our results lay the neuroanatomical basis for tanycyte/neural cell interactions, which will be useful to further understand cell-to-cell communications involved in the regulation of neuroendocrine functions.
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