Chapter 17 Outline

The Nature of The Neural Crest

  • Regionalization of the Neural Crest
  • Are most neural crest cells multipotent?
  • Specification of neural crest cells

Neural Crest Cell Migration: Epithelial to Mesenchymal and Beyond

  • Delamination
  • The driving force of contact inhibition
  • Collective migration

Migration Pathways of Trunk Neural Crest Cells

  • The ventral pathway
    • Going for the gut
  • The dorsolateral pathway
    • Cell differentiation in the dorsolateral pathway
    • Cell guidance in the dorsolateral pathway
  • The neural crest (so far): A brief summary

Migration of Cranial Neural Crest Cells

  • The “Chase and Run” Model: An elaborate collaboration of pushes and pulls
  • Neural Crest-Derived Head Skeleton

Cardiac Neural Crest

Establishing axonal pathways in the nervous system

  • The growth cone: driver and engine of axon pathfinding
  • Rho, Rho, Rho your actin filaments down the signaling stream
  • Axon guidance

The Intrinsic Navigational Programming of Motor Neurons

  • Cell adhesion: “grabbing the road”
  • Local and long-range guidance molecules: “Street signs”
  • Ephrins and semaphorins: Repulsion patterns

Commissural Neurons: How Did the Axon Cross the Road?

  • Netrin
  • Slit and Robo

The Travels of Retinal Ganglion Axons

  • Growth of the retinal ganglion axon to the optic nerve
  • Growth of the retinal ganglion axon through the optic chiasm

Target Selection: “Are We There Yet?”

  • Chemotactic proteins: Chemical addresses
    • Endothelins
    • Neurotropins
  • Quantity and quality
  • Target selection by retinal axons: “Seeing is believing”

Synapse Formation

Back to top