Journal
DEVELOPMENT
Volume 131, Issue 23, Pages 5871-5881Publisher
COMPANY BIOLOGISTS LTD
DOI: 10.1242/dev.01516
Keywords
pre-placodal ectoderm; neural crest,foxD3; Zic2; sox2; sox3; keratin; dlx5; dlx6; cell fate determination; patterning; Xenopus
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Funding
- NEI NIH HHS [R01 EY010096, EY13911, R01 EY013167, EY13167, EY07145] Funding Source: Medline
- NINDS NIH HHS [R01 NS023158, NS23158] Funding Source: Medline
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Cranial placodes, which give rise to sensory organs in the vertebrate head, are important embryonic structures whose development has not been well studied because of their transient nature and paucity of molecular markers. We have used markers of pre-placodal ectoderm (PPE) (six1, eya1) to determine that gradients of both neural inducers and anteroposterior signals are necessary to induce and appropriately position the PPE. Overexpression of six1 expands the PPE at the expense of neural crest and epidermis, whereas knock-down of Six1 results in reduction of the PPE domain and expansion of the neural plate, neural crest and epidermis. Using expression of activator and repressor constructs of six1 or co-expression of wild-type six1 with activating or repressing co-factors (eya1 and groucho, respectively), we demonstrate that Six1 inhibits neural crest and epidermal genes via transcriptional repression and enhances PPE genes via transcriptional activation. Ectopic expression of neural plate, neural crest and epidermal genes in the PPE demonstrates that these factors mutually influence each other to establish the appropriate boundaries between these ectodermal domains.
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