Live monitoring reveals spatial and temporal codes of guidance receptor dynamics during commissural axon navigation

Abstract :

During embryonic development, commissural axons navigate through the ventral midline, crossing from one side of the CNS to the other one at specific time points and positions. Various ligand/receptors couples mediate the repulsive cascades necessary to induce proper guidance responses of commissural growth cones. How is achieved the functional specificity of these repulsive cascades suggested by different outcome of their invalidation in mouse models, still remains unknown.

In this SC I’ll present you our work combining live imaging and super-resolution microscopy in a new set up developed in Castellani’s team which (1) reveals that guidance receptors for midline repellents have highly specific spatial and temporal dynamics, and (2) uncovers an additional intermediate target for commissural axons, triggering changes of receptor equipment for proper post-crossing pathway selection.