TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of intermediate filament disruption on the early development of the peripheral nervous system of Xenopus laevis
AU - Lin, Weichun
AU - Szaro, Ben G.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Drs. L. Charnas (NIH, Bethesda, MD) for the anti-XNIF antibody, V. M.-Y. Lee (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA) for the RMO270 antibody, R. Klausner (NCI, Bethesda, MD) for the 8D12, anti-MAP1 antibody, and R. Harland (U.C. Berkeley, CA) for the pSP6uncβgal plasmid. We also thank Drs. J. Schmidt and S. Tieman (SUNY, Albany) for helpful comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by NIH Grant NS 30682.
PY - 1996/10/10
Y1 - 1996/10/10
N2 - The principal function of intermediate filaments is to strengthen cells. Their developmentally regulated, tissue-specific patterns of expression further suggest that they modulate cellular structural properties during development. To explore the role of intermediate filaments in development, we injected RNA encoding a truncated form of the Xenopus laevis middle-molecular-weight neurofilament protein (NF-M) into embryonic frog blastomeres at the 2-cell stage. A similar truncated form of mammalian NF-M disrupts neurofilaments (Type IV) and vimentin (Type III) intermediate filaments in transfected fibroblasts. In cultures made from dissociated neural tubes and their adjacent myotomes, the resultant protein disrupted both desmin filaments in muscle cells and neurofilaments in neurons during the first day of culture, which corresponds to stage 35/36 in the intact embryo. We next examined the effects of this truncated neurofilament protein on development of the nervous system. The greatest effects were seen on development of cranial and primary motor nerves, which were severely stunted as late as stage 37/38. In addition to these effects, ectopic neurons also appeared immediately beneath the epidermis along the flank of tadpoles expressing the truncated neurofilament protein. Whereas the former effects on peripheral nerve development were nearly identical to effects obtained with injected neurofilament antibodies, the ectopic neurons were novel, suggesting they resulted from the disruption of intermediate filaments other than the neurofilaments. These experiments thus implicate intermediate filaments in several functions important for normal neural development.
AB - The principal function of intermediate filaments is to strengthen cells. Their developmentally regulated, tissue-specific patterns of expression further suggest that they modulate cellular structural properties during development. To explore the role of intermediate filaments in development, we injected RNA encoding a truncated form of the Xenopus laevis middle-molecular-weight neurofilament protein (NF-M) into embryonic frog blastomeres at the 2-cell stage. A similar truncated form of mammalian NF-M disrupts neurofilaments (Type IV) and vimentin (Type III) intermediate filaments in transfected fibroblasts. In cultures made from dissociated neural tubes and their adjacent myotomes, the resultant protein disrupted both desmin filaments in muscle cells and neurofilaments in neurons during the first day of culture, which corresponds to stage 35/36 in the intact embryo. We next examined the effects of this truncated neurofilament protein on development of the nervous system. The greatest effects were seen on development of cranial and primary motor nerves, which were severely stunted as late as stage 37/38. In addition to these effects, ectopic neurons also appeared immediately beneath the epidermis along the flank of tadpoles expressing the truncated neurofilament protein. Whereas the former effects on peripheral nerve development were nearly identical to effects obtained with injected neurofilament antibodies, the ectopic neurons were novel, suggesting they resulted from the disruption of intermediate filaments other than the neurofilaments. These experiments thus implicate intermediate filaments in several functions important for normal neural development.
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U2 - 10.1006/dbio.1996.0251
DO - 10.1006/dbio.1996.0251
M3 - Article
C2 - 8873764
AN - SCOPUS:0030579128
SN - 0012-1606
VL - 179
SP - 197
EP - 211
JO - Developmental Biology
JF - Developmental Biology
IS - 1
ER -