Sox2 and Mitf cross-regulatory interactions consolidate progenitor and melanocyte lineages in the cranial neural crest.

ABSTRACT: The cellular origin and molecular mechanisms regulating pigmentation of head and neck are largely unknown. Melanocyte specification is controlled by the transcriptional activity of Mitf, but no general logic has emerged to explain how Mitf and progenitor transcriptional activities consolidate melanocyte and progenitor cell fates. We show that cranial melanocytes arise from at least two different cellular sources: initially from nerve-associated Schwann cell precursors (SCPs) and later from a cellular source that is independent of nerves. Unlike the midbrain-hindbrain cluster from which melanoblasts arise independently of nerves, a large center of melanocytes in and around cranial nerves IX-X is derived from SCPs, as shown by genetic cell-lineage tracing and analysis of ErbB3-null mutant mi

SUBMITTER: Adameyko I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4067268 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature