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The vertebrate retina is highly ordered along both its dorsoventral (DV) and nasotemporal (NT) axes, and this order is topographically maintained in its axonal connections to the superior colliculus of the midbrain. Although the graded axon guidance cues that mediate the topographic mapping of retinocollicular connections are increasingly well understood, the transcriptional regulators that set the DV and NT gradients of these cues are not. We now provide genetic evidence that Vax2, a homeodomain protein expressed in the ventral retina, is one such regulator. We demonstrate that in Vax2 mutant mice, retinocollicular projections from the ventral temporal retina are dorsalized relative to wild type. Remarkably, however, this dorsalization becomes systematically less severe in progressively more nasal regions of the ventral retina. Vax2 mutants also exhibit flattened DV and NT gradients of the EphA5, EphB2, EphB3, ephrin-B1 and ephrin-B2 axon guidance cues. Together, these data identify Vax2 as a fundamental regulator of axial polarization in the mammalian retina.

The homeodomain protein Vax1 is expressed in a highly circumscribed set of cells at the ventral anterior midline of the embryonic CNS. These cells populate the choroid fissure of the optic disk, the body of the optic stalk and nerve, the optic chiasm and ventral diencephalon, and the anterior midline zones that abut developing commissural tracts. We have generated mutant mice that lack Vax1. In these mice (1) the optic disks fail to close, leading to coloboma and loss of the eye-nerve boundary; (2) optic nerve glia fail to associate with and appear to repulse ingrowing retinal axons, resulting in a fascicle of axons that are completely segregated from optic nerve astrocytes; (3) retinal axons fail to penetrate the brain in significant numbers and fail to form an optic chiasm; and (4) axons in multiple commissural tracts of the anterior CNS, including the corpus callosum and the hippocampal and anterior commissures, fail to cross the midline. These axon guidance defects do not result from the death of normally Vax1(+) midline cells but, instead, correlate with markedly diminished expression of attractive guidance cues in these cells. Vax1 therefore regulates the guidance properties of a set of anterior midline cells that orchestrate axon trajectories in the developing mammalian forebrain.

The reaction between gaseous titanium tetrachloride and the eutectic melt of potassium and lithium chlorides was investigated at various temperatures and pressures. It was found that, at an optimum temperature of 370 °C, titanium tetrachloride vapor at a pressure of 1 atm reacts with the potassium chloride in the eutectic to yield K2TiCl6as a solid mixture with lithium chloride.The solubilities of K2TiCl6, and the partial molar properties of the solutions of K2TiCl6, and of potassium chloride, in the eutectic melt of potassium and lithium chlorides were obtained by vapor pressure measurements. It was found that the solubility of titanium tetrachloride increases from 1.5 weight% at 420 °C to 5 weight% at 500 °C. The activities of K2TiCl6, and of potassium chloride, indicate positive deviations from ideality.