Neurite arborization and mosaic spacing in the mouse retina require DSCAM.

ABSTRACT: To establish functional circuitry, retinal neurons occupy spatial domains by arborizing their processes, which requires the self-avoidance of neurites from an individual cell, and by spacing their cell bodies, which requires positioning the soma and establishing a zone within which other cells of the same type are excluded. The mosaic patterns of distinct cell types form independently and overlap. The cues that direct these processes in the vertebrate retina are not known. Here we show that some types of retinal amacrine cells from mice with a spontaneous mutation in Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule (Dscam), a gene encoding an immunoglobulin-superfamily member adhesion molecule, have defects in the arborization of processes and in the spacing of cell bodies. In the mutant retina, cells

SUBMITTER: Fuerst PG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2259282 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature