The Requirement of Sox2 for the Spinal Cord Motor Neuron Development of Zebrafish

Jie Gong; Songqun Hu; Zigang Huang; Yuebo Hu; Xiaoning Wang; Jinxiang Zhao; Peipei Qian; Cheng Wang; Jiajing Sheng; Xiaofeng Lu; Guanyun Wei; Dong Liu

doi:10.3389/fnmol.2020.00034

The Requirement of Sox2 for the Spinal Cord Motor Neuron Development of Zebrafish

Front Mol Neurosci. 2020 Mar 27:13:34. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2020.00034. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Jie Gong¹, Songqun Hu², Zigang Huang¹, Yuebo Hu³, Xiaoning Wang³, Jinxiang Zhao³, Peipei Qian³, Cheng Wang¹, Jiajing Sheng¹, Xiaofeng Lu¹, Guanyun Wei¹, Dong Liu^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Science, Nantong University, Nantong, China.
² Department of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Neuroregeneration of Jiangsu and MOE, Co-innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong, China.

Abstract

Sex-determining region Y box 2 (Sox2), expressed in neural tissues, plays an important role as a transcription factor not only in the pluripotency and proliferation of neuronal cells but also in the opposite function of cell differentiation. Nevertheless, how Sox2 is linked to motor neuron development remains unknown. Here, we showed that Sox2 was localized in the motor neurons of spinal cord by in situ hybridization and cell separation, which acted as a positive regulator of motor neuron development. The deficiency of Sox2 in zebrafish larvae resulted in abnormal PMN development, including truncated but excessively branched CaP axons, loss of MiP, and increase of undifferentiated neuron cells. Importantly, transcriptome analysis showed that Sox2-depleted embryos caused many neurogenesis, axonogenesis, axon guidance, and differentiation-related gene expression changes, which further support the vital function of Sox2 in motor neuron development. Taken together, these data indicate that Sox2 plays a crucial role in the motor neuron development by regulating neuron differentiation and morphology of neuron axons.

Keywords: Sox2; axons; development; differentiation; motor neuron; zebrafish.