Members of the Sox family of transcription factors are involved in a number of crucial developmental processes, including sex determination, neurogenesis and skeletal development. LSox5 is a member of the group D Sox factors that, in conjunction with Sox6 and Sox9, promotes chondrogenesis by activating the expression of cartilage-specific extracellular matrix molecules. We have cloned the chick...

Neural crest populations along the embryonic body axis of vertebrates differ in developmental potential and fate, so that only the cranial neural crest can contribute to the craniofacial skeleton in vivo. We explored the regulatory program that imbues the cranial crest with its specialized features. Using axial-level specific enhancers to isolate and perform genome-wide profiling of the cranial...

Early in the process of development, vertebrate embryos develop a fold on the neural plate [6] where the neural and epidermal ectoderms meet, called the neural crest [7]. The neural crest [7] produces neural crest cells [8] (NCCs), which become multiple different cell types and contribute to tissues and organs as an embryo develops. A few of the organs and tissues include peripheral and enteric...

The neural crest is a migratory and multipotent cell population that plays a crucial role in many aspects of embryonic development. In all vertebrate embryos, these cells emerge from the dorsal neural tube then migrate long distances to different regions of the body, where they contribute to formation of many cell types and structures. These include much of the peripheral nervous system, cranio...

The objective of this research was to determine the origin of the cholinergic neurons that populate the heart following ablation of the neural crest area, which normally gives rise to the cardiac ganglia. Using ablation of various areas of surface ectoderm--including neural crest migrating to the heart, nodose placode, and neural crest plus nodose placode--it was determined that regeneration of...

BACKGROUND During vertebrate head development, neural crest cells migrate from hindbrain segments to specific branchial arches, where they differentiate into distinct patterns of skeletal structures. The rostrocaudal identity of branchial neural crest cells appears to be specified prior to migration, so it is important that they are targeted to the correct destination. In Xenopus embryos, branc...

To permit a more detailed analysis of neural crest cell migratory pathways in the chick embryo, neural crest cells were labelled with a nondeleterious membrane intercalating vital dye, DiI. All neural tube cells with endfeet in contact with the lumen, including premigratory neural crest cells, were labelled by pressure injecting a solution of DiI into the lumen of the neural tube. When assayed ...

Trunk neural crest cells migrate through the somites in a striking segmental fashion, entering the rostral but not caudal sclerotome, via cues intrinsic to the somites. Attempts to define the molecular bases of these cues have been hampered by the lack of an accessible assay system. To examine trunk neural crest migration over time and to perturb candidate guiding molecules, we have developed a...

Transcription factors regulate tissue patterning and cell fate determination during development; however, expression of early regulators frequently abates upon differentiation, suggesting that they may also play a role in maintaining an undifferentiated phenotype. The transcription factor paired box 3 (Pax3) is expressed by multipotent neural crest precursors and is implicated in neural crest d...

Recent studies have shown that adipose-derived stromal/stem cells (ASCs) contain phenotypically and functionally heterogeneous subpopulations of cells, but their developmental origin and their relative differentiation potential remain elusive. In the present study, we aimed at investigating how and to what extent the neural crest contributes to ASCs using Cre-loxP-mediated fate mapping. ASCs ha...