1. Amphioxus neuroglia: Molecular characterization and evidence for early compartmentalization of the developing nerve cord
- Author
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Emanuela Marcenaro, Valentina Obino, Thurston C. Lacalli, Federico Caicci, Tiziana Bachetti, Mario Pestarino, Lucia Manni, Matteo Bozzo, Michael Schubert, Simona Candiani, Laboratoire de Biologie du Développement de Villefranche sur mer (LBDV), Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de la Mer de Villefranche (IMEV), and Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Neurogenesis ,Central nervous system ,astroglia ,cephalochordates ,evolution ,glial and neural progenitors ,radial glia ,Context (language use) ,Chordate ,03 medical and health sciences ,Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience ,0302 clinical medicine ,biology.animal ,Precursor cell ,medicine ,Animals ,Progenitor cell ,Neural cell ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,Lancelets ,biology ,Vertebrate ,biology.organism_classification ,Biological Evolution ,Cell biology ,030104 developmental biology ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,[SDV.BDD.EO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Development Biology/Embryology and Organogenesis ,nervous system ,Neurology ,Vertebrates ,Neuroglia ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Glial cells play important roles in the development and homeostasis of metazoan nervous systems. However, while their involvement in the development and function in the central nervous system (CNS) of vertebrates is increasingly well understood, much less is known about invertebrate glia and the evolutionary history of glial cells more generally. An investigation into amphioxus glia is therefore timely, as this organism is the best living proxy for the last common ancestor of all chordates, and hence provides a window into the role of glial cell development and function at the transition of invertebrates and vertebrates. We report here our findings on amphioxus glia as characterized by molecular probes correlated with anatomical data at the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) level. The results show that amphioxus glial lineages express genes typical of vertebrate astroglia and radial glia, and that they segregate early in development, forming what appears to be a spatially separate cell proliferation zone positioned laterally, between the dorsal and ventral zones of neural cell proliferation. Our study provides strong evidence for the presence of vertebrate-type glial cells in amphioxus, while highlighting the role played by segregated progenitor cell pools in CNS development. There are implications also for our understanding of glial cells in a broader evolutionary context, and insights into patterns of precursor cell deployment in the chordate nerve cord.
- Published
- 2021