Journal
CELL
Volume 147, Issue 3, Pages 641-652Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.09.037
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NINDS [RO1 NS033245]
- HHMI
- NIH [R01GM062270]
- Wellcome Trust
- G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation
- Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Neurons typically settle at positions that match the location of their synaptic targets, creating topographic maps. In the spinal cord, the organization of motor neurons into discrete clusters is linked to the location of their muscle targets, establishing a topographic map of punctate design. To define the significance of motor pool organization for neuromuscular map formation, we assessed the role of cadherin-catenin signaling in motor neuron positioning and limb muscle innervation. We find that joint inactivation of beta- and gamma-catenin scrambles motor neuron settling position in the spinal cord but fails to erode the predictive link between motor neuron transcriptional identity and muscle target. Inactivation of N-cadherin perturbs pool positioning in similar ways, albeit with reduced penetrance. These findings reveal that cadherin-catenin signaling directs motor pool patterning and imposes topographic order on an underlying identity-based neural map.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available