Signalling by the RET receptor tyrosine kinase and its role in the development of the mammalian enteric nervous system

Autor: Li-Chong Wang, Harsha R. Jani, Pascale Durbec, Stavros Taraviras, Maria Grigoriou, Mary Hynes, Vassilis Pachnis, Geoffrey Raisman, Madhu Sukumaran, Camelia V. Marcos-Gutierrez
Předmět:
medicine.medical_specialty
Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Receptors
Cell Survival
Neurturin
Dopamine
Gestational Age
Mice
Transgenic

Nerve Tissue Proteins
Receptor tyrosine kinase
Enteric Nervous System
Mice
Neurotrophin 3
Neurotrophic factors
Mesencephalon
Internal medicine
Proto-Oncogene Proteins
Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor
medicine
Animals
Drosophila Proteins
Ciliary Neurotrophic Factor
Glial Cell Line-Derived Neurotrophic Factor
Nerve Growth Factors
Neurons
Afferent

Rats
Wistar

Molecular Biology
Cells
Cultured

Neurons
biology
Cell Death
Homozygote
Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-ret
Neural crest
Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases
Cell Differentiation
Embryo
Mammalian

Cell biology
Rats
Endocrinology
Neural Crest
Mutation
biology.protein
Enteric nervous system
GDNF family of ligands
Digestive System
Developmental Biology
Signal Transduction
Zdroj: Europe PubMed Central
Scopus-Elsevier
Popis: RET is a member of the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) superfamily, which can transduce signalling by glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and neurturin (NTN) in cultured cells. In order to determine whether in addition to being sufficient, RET is also necessary for signalling by these growth factors, we studied the response to GDNF and NTN of primary neuronal cultures (peripheral sensory and central dopaminergic neurons) derived from wild-type and RET-deficient mice. Our experiments show that absence of a functional RET receptor abrogates the biological responses of neuronal cells to both GDNF and NTN. Despite the established role of the RET signal transduction pathway in the development of the mammalian enteric nervous system (ENS), very little is known regarding its cellular mechanism(s) of action. Here, we have studied the effects of GDNF and NTN on cultures of neural crest (NC)-derived cells isolated from the gut of rat embryos. Our findings suggest that GDNF and NTN promote the survival of enteric neurons as well as the survival, proliferation and differentiation of multipotential ENS progenitors present in the gut of E12.5-13.5 rat embryos. However, the effects of these growth factors are stage-specific, since similar ENS cultures established from later stage embryos (E14.5-15.5), show markedly diminished response to GDNF and NTN. To examine whether the in vitro effects of RET activation reflect the in vivo function(s) of this receptor, the extent of programmed cell death was examined in the gut of wild-type and RET-deficient mouse embryos by TUNEL histochemistry. Our experiments show that a subpopulation of enteric NC undergoes apoptotic cell death specifically in the foregut of embryos lacking the RET receptor. We suggest that normal function of the RET RTK is required in vivo during early stages of ENS histogenesis for the survival of undifferentiated enteric NC and their derivatives.
Databáze: OpenAIRE