CXCR4/SDF1 signalling promotes sensory neuron clustering in vitro

Daniel Terheyden-Keighley; Xiaoqing Zhang; Beate Brand-Saberi; Carsten Theiss

doi:10.1242/bio.035568

CXCR4/SDF1 signalling promotes sensory neuron clustering in vitro

Biol Open. 2018 Sep 19;7(9):bio035568. doi: 10.1242/bio.035568.

Authors

Daniel Terheyden-Keighley¹, Xiaoqing Zhang², Beate Brand-Saberi³, Carsten Theiss⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Anatomy, Department of Cytology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany.
² Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, and Neuroregeneration Key Laboratory of Shanghai Universities, Tongji University School of Medicine, 200092 Shanghai, China.
³ Institute of Anatomy, Department of Anatomy and Molecular Embryology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany.
⁴ Institute of Anatomy, Department of Cytology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany carsten.theiss@rub.de.

Abstract

During the development of the peripheral nervous system, a subgroup of neural crest cells migrate away from the neural tube and coalesce into clusters of sensory neurons (ganglia). Mechanisms involved in the formation of the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) from neural crest cells are currently unclear. Mice carrying mutations in Cxcr4, which is known to control neural crest migration, exhibit malformed DRG. In order to investigate this phenomenon, we modelled sensory neuron differentiation in vitro by directing the differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells into sensory neurons under SDF1 (agonist), AMD3100 (antagonist) or control conditions. There we could show a marked effect on the clustering activity of the neurons in vitro, suggesting that CXCR4 signalling is involved in facilitating DRG condensation.

Keywords: CXCL12; Condensation; DRG; DSi.