Axon guidance at the spinal cord midline-A live imaging perspective.

ABSTRACT: During neural circuit formation, axons navigate several choice points to reach their final target. At each one of these intermediate targets, growth cones need to switch responsiveness from attraction to repulsion in order to move on. Molecular mechanisms that allow for the precise timing of surface expression of a new set of receptors that support the switch in responsiveness are difficult to study in vivo. Mostly, mechanisms are inferred from the observation of snapshots of many different growth cones analyzed in different preparations of tissue harvested at distinct time points. However, to really understand the behavior of growth cones at choice points, a single growth cone should be followed arriving at and leaving the intermediate target. Existing ex vivo preparations, like cultures

SUBMITTER: Dumoulin A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8248161 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature