Project description:Bone is an evolutionary novelty of vertebrates, likely to have first emerged as part of ancestral dermal armor that consisted of osteogenic and odontogenic components. Whether these early vertebrate structures arose from mesoderm or neural crest cells has been a matter of considerable debate. To examine the developmental origin of the bony part of the dermal armor, we have performed in vivo lineage tracing in the sterlet sturgeon, a representative of non-teleost ray-finned fish that has retained an extensive postcranial dermal skeleton. The results definitively show that sterlet trunk neural crest cells give rise to osteoblasts of the scutes. Transcriptional profiling further reveals neural crest gene signature in sterlet scutes as well as bichir scales. Finally, histological and microCT analysis of ray-finned fish dermal armor show that their scales and scutes are formed by bone, dentin and hypermineralized covering tissues, in various combinations, that resemble those of the first armored vertebrates. Taken together, our results support a primitive skeletogenic role for the neural crest along the entire body axis, that was later progressively restricted to the cranial region during vertebrate evolution. Thus, the neural crest was a crucial evolutionary innovation driving the origin and diversification of dermal armor along the entire body axis.
Project description:Neural crest cells migrate extensively in vertebrate embryos to populate diverse derivatives including ganglia of the peripheral nervous system. Little is known about the molecular mechanisms that tell migrating trunk neural crest cells to settle at selected sites in the embryo by ceasing migration and initiating differentiation programs.
Project description:Ectoderm-derived neural crest is a transient structure arising during early embryogenesis in vertebrates. Neural crest consists of four derivatives based on their anterior- to posterior location along the body axis; cranial, vagal, trunk and sacral, respectively. We recently showed that trunk neural crest-specific gene MOXD1 functions as a tumor suppressor in trunk neural crest-derived childhood cancer form neuroblastoma and is essential for proper development of healthy adrenal glands. However, the role of MOXD1 during early embryogenesis is not known. Here, we conditionally knocked out MOXD1 in trunk neural crest cells before they become lineage-committed, using a CRISPR/Cas9 approach in chick embryos. Assessment of embryo growth showed that knockout of MOXD1 delayed development with knockout embryos being smaller. RNA sequencing of trunk-derived neural crest cells from control and knockout embryos showed enrichment of genes connected to gland development, copper ion metabolism and neuroblastoma progression. In conclusion, MOXD1 is important during early and prolonged embryonic development with effects on gland formation, possibly mediated via its role in copper metabolism.
Project description:We report that cancer associated protein HIF-2a is expressed in trunk neural crest neuroblastoma precursor cells in the developing embryo in three different species; human, mouse and avian. Dysregulation of HIF-2a leads to alterations in embryonic development, and neural crest cell migration, proliferation and self-renewal capacity. With RNAsequencing we report that alterations of HIF-2a expression affects the global transcriptome and that gene ontology enrich for the same processes observed in vivo.
Project description:The enteric nervous system of jawed vertebrates arises primarily from vagal neural crest cells that migrate to the foregut and subsequently colonize and innervate the entire gastrointestinal tract. Here we examine development of the enteric nervous system in the basal jawless vertebrate the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) to gain insight into its evolutionary origin. Surprisingly, we find no evidence for the existence of a vagally derived enteric neural crest population in the lamprey. Rather, labelling with the lipophilic dye DiI shows that late-migrating cells, originating from the trunk neural tube and associated with nerve fibres, differentiate into neurons within the gut wall and typhlosole. We propose that these trunk-derived neural crest cells may be homologous to Schwann cell precursors, recently shown in mammalian embryos to populate post-embryonic parasympathetic ganglia, including enteric ganglia. Our results suggest that neural-crest-derived Schwann cell precursors made an important contribution to the ancient enteric nervous system of early jawless vertebrates, a role that was largely subsumed by vagal neural crest cells in early gnathostomes.
Project description:The formation of the vertebrate body is driven by the progressive and coordinated production of trunk tissues from pools of progenitors located in the posterior of the embryo. Aspects of this process are recapitulated by in vitro models based on pluripotent stem cells (PSCs). However, these models lack several tissue components normally found in the vertebrate trunk. Most strikingly, the notochord, a hallmark of chordates and the source of midline signals that pattern surrounding tissues, is absent from current models of human trunk formation. To investigate how trunk tissue is formed, we performed single-cell transcriptomic analysis of chick embryos. This delineated molecularly discrete progenitor populations, which we spatially locate in the embryo and relate to signalling activity. Guided by this map, we determined how a stereotypical spatial organization of tissue types arises in differentiating human PSCs. This involved LATS1/2 mediated repression of YAP activity facilitating WNT signalling, that, together with FGF mediated ERK1/2 activation, induces the transcription factor Bra/TBXT. In addition, timely inhibition of a WNT-induced NODAL and BMP signalling cascade regulates the proportions of different tissue types produced, including notochordal cells. We exploit this to develop an integrated 3D model of human notochord and neural tissue formation. Together the data provide insight into the mechanisms responsible for the formation of the tissues that comprise the vertebrate trunk and pave the way for future studies of patterning in a tissue-like environment.
Project description:The in vitro generation of neural crest (NC) cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) is a valuable approach to study human NC biology and isolate NC derivatives for disease modelling/regenerative medicine applications. However, conventional differentiation protocols induce only a modest yield of NC cells corresponding to the trunk level. Here we show that trunk NC cells and, their downstream derivatives, sympathoadrenal progenitors, can be produced at a high efficiency from hPSC-derived axial progenitors, the in vitro counterparts of the posteriorly-located drivers of embryonic axis elongation. Moreover, using transcriptome analysis, we define the molecular signatures associated with the emergence of human NC cells of distinct axial identities. Collectively, our findings indicate that a post-cranial NC state is achieved through two different routes: the birth of cardiac and vagal NC is facilitated by retinoic acid-induced posteriorisation of an anterior precursor whereas a trunk fate relies on a posterior axial progenitor intermediate.
Project description:Skin-derived precursors (SKPs) are multipotent dermal stem cells that reside within a hair follicle niche and that share properties with embryonic neural crest precursors. Here, we have asked whether SKPs and their endogenous dermal precursors originate from the neural crest or whether, like the dermis itself, they originate from multiple developmental origins. To do this, we used two different mouse Cre lines that allow us to perform lineage tracing: Wnt1-cre, which targets cells deriving from the neural crest, and Myf5-cre, which targets cells of a somite origin. By crossing these Cre lines to reporter mice, we show that the endogenous follicle-associated dermal precursors in the face derive from the neural crest, and those in the dorsal trunk derive from the somites, as do the SKPs they generate. In spite of these different developmental origins, SKPs from these two locations are functionally similar, even with regard to their ability to differentiate into Schwann cells, a cell type only thought to be generated from the neural crest. Analysis of global gene expression using microarrays confirmed that facial and dorsal SKPs exhibit a very high degree of similarity, and that they are also very similar to SKPs derived from ventral dermis, which has a lateral plate origin. However, these developmentally-distinct SKPs also retain differential expression of a small number of genes that reflect their developmental origins. Thus, an adult neural crest-like dermal precursor can be generated from a non-neural crest origin, a finding with broad implications for the many neuroendocrine cells in the body. We obtained three independent isolates each of dorsal trunk SKPs, ventral trunk SKPs and facial SKPs and four isolates of MSCs, all generated from adult rats. RNA samples deriving from these cells were analyzed on the Affymetrix GeneChip Rat Gene 1.0 ST Array.
Project description:The formation of the vertebrate body is driven by the progressive and coordinated production of trunk tissues from pools of progenitors located in the posterior of the embryo. Aspects of this process are recapitulated by in vitro models based on pluripotent stem cells (PSCs). However, these models lack several tissue components normally found in the vertebrate trunk. Most strikingly, the notochord, a hallmark of chordates and the source of midline signals that pattern surrounding tissues, is absent from current models of human trunk formation. To investigate how trunk tissue is formed, we performed single-cell transcriptomic analysis of chick embryos. This delineated molecularly discrete progenitor populations, which we spatially locate in the embryo and relate to signalling activity. Guided by this map, we determined how a stereotypical spatial organization of tissue types arises in differentiating human PSCs. This involved LATS1/2 mediated repression of YAP activity facilitating WNT signalling, that, together with FGF mediated ERK1/2 activation, induces the transcription factor Bra/TBXT. In addition, timely inhibition of a WNT-induced NODAL and BMP signalling cascade regulates the proportions of different tissue types produced, including notochordal cells. We exploit this to develop an integrated 3D model of human notochord and neural tissue formation. Together the data provide insight into the mechanisms responsible for the formation of the tissues that comprise the vertebrate trunk and pave the way for future studies of patterning in a tissue-like environment.