RESUMO
Signaling pathways involving cAMP and CREB have been implicated in several aspects of sympathetic neuron differentiation. Here, we used in vivo loss-of-function approaches in both mouse and chick embryos to characterize the physiological role of cAMP/CREB. Whereas sympathetic neuron development proceeds normally in CREB-deficient mouse embryos, a decrease in noradrenergic differentiation (TH, DBH) was observed in chick sympathetic ganglia in response to ACREB, a dominant-negative CREB variant which interferes with the function of all CREB family members. In contrast, expression of the generic neuronal marker SCG10 was not affected by ACREB. As the decrease in noradrenergic gene expression is compensated at later stages of development and TH expression in differentiated neurons is not CREB-dependent, a transient role for CREB is proposed, accelerating noradrenergic but not generic neuronal differentiation of sympathetic neurons.
Assuntos
Diferenciação Celular/fisiologia , Proteína de Ligação ao Elemento de Resposta ao AMP Cíclico/metabolismo , Gânglios Simpáticos/citologia , Neurônios/fisiologia , Norepinefrina/metabolismo , Transdução de Sinais/fisiologia , Animais , Células Cultivadas , Embrião de Galinha , Proteína de Ligação ao Elemento de Resposta ao AMP Cíclico/genética , Proteínas Quinases Dependentes de AMP Cíclico/genética , Proteínas Quinases Dependentes de AMP Cíclico/metabolismo , Gânglios Simpáticos/fisiologia , Proteínas de Homeodomínio/genética , Proteínas de Homeodomínio/metabolismo , Camundongos , Camundongos Knockout , Neurônios/citologiaRESUMO
The basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor Hand2, together with Ascl1, Phox2a, Phox2b and Gata2/Gata3, is induced by bone morphogenetic proteins in neural crest-derived precursor cells during sympathetic neuron generation. Hand2 overexpression experiments and the analysis of its function at the Dbh promotor implicated Hand2 in the control of noradrenergic gene expression. Using the zebrafish hand2 deletion mutant hands off, we have now investigated the physiological role of hand2 in the development of sympathetic ganglia. In hands off mutant embryos, sympathetic precursor cells aggregate to form normal sympathetic ganglion primordia characterized by the expression of phox2b, phox2a and the achaete-scute family member zash1a/ascl1. The expression of the noradrenergic marker genes th and dbh is strongly reduced, as well as the transcription factors gata2 and tfap2a (Ap-2alpha). By contrast, generic neuronal differentiation seems to be unaffected, as the expression of elavl3 (HuC) is not reduced in hands off sympathetic ganglia. These results demonstrate in vivo an essential and selective function of hand2 for the noradrenergic differentiation of sympathetic neurons, and implicates tfap2a and gata2 as downstream effectors.
