1. Rspo1 and Rspo3 are required for sensory lineage neural crest formation in mouse embryos.
- Author
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Shinozuka T, Aoki M, Hatakeyama Y, Sasai N, Okamoto H, and Takada S
- Subjects
- Mice, Animals, Wnt Signaling Pathway, Spinal Cord, beta Catenin genetics, beta Catenin metabolism, Neural Crest metabolism
- Abstract
Background: R-spondins (Rspos) are secreted proteins that modulate Wnt/β-catenin signaling. At the early stages of spinal cord development, Wnts (Wnt1, Wnt3a) and Rspos (Rspo1, Rspo3) are co-expressed in the roof plate, suggesting that Rspos are involved in development of dorsal spinal cord and neural crest cells in cooperation with Wnt ligands., Results: Here, we found that Rspo1 and Rspo3, as well as Wnt1 and Wnt3a, maintained roof-plate-specific expression until late embryonic stages. Rspo1- and Rspo3-double-knock-out (dKO) embryos partially exhibited the phenotype of Wnt1 and Wnt3a dKO embryos. While the number of Ngn2-positive sensory lineage neural crest cells is reduced in Rspo-dKO embryos, development of dorsal spinal cord, including its size and dorso-ventral patterning in early development, elongation of the roof plate, and proliferation of ependymal cells, proceeded normally. Consistent with these slight defects, Wnt/β-catenin signaling was not obviously changed in developing spinal cord of dKO embryos., Conclusions: Our results show that Rspo1 and Rspo3 are dispensable for most developmental processes involving roof plate-derived Wnt ligands, except for specification of a subtype of neural crest cells. Thus, Rspos may modulate Wnt/β-catenin signaling in a context-dependent manner., (© 2023 The Authors. Developmental Dynamics published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association for Anatomy.)
- Published
- 2024
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