Dorsal root ganglion development - analysis of sox10 function using novel transgenic and mutant resources in zebrafish

在正常的发育过程中，细胞决定成为什么类型的细胞是至关重要的。周围神经系统由一系列的细胞群（神经节）组成。这些细胞簇包含两种类型的细胞，神经元和支持细胞（胶质细胞）。为了使神经节正常工作，神经节必须同时具有适当数量的神经元和神经胶质。因此，必须将细胞以适当的数量分配给每种细胞类型。对于一组神经节，感觉神经节，我们知道细胞命运的几种影响。一种是控制许多基因活动的蛋白质，这些被激活的基因决定了细胞是神经元细胞还是神经胶质细胞。另一种是一组蛋白质，它们介导相邻细胞之间的通信，允许它们协调命运的选择。了解发育中的神经节细胞如何协调这两种影响是理解正常发育的关键问题。我们最近在前一种蛋白质中分离出一种独特的突变体，这种突变体似乎导致了第二个系统功能的缺陷。我们的提议将使我们能够检验我们的想法，即这些影响是如何协调产生神经节的。

In normal development it is vital that cells make decisions about what type of cell to become. The peripheral nervous system consists of a series of clusters of cells (ganglia). These clusters contain cells of two types, neurons, and support cells (glia). To function correctly the ganglia must have appropriate numbers of both neurons and glia. Thus, cells must be allocated to each of these cell-types in the appropriate numbers. For one set of ganglia, the sensory ganglia, we know of several influences of cell fate. One is a protein that controls the activity of many genes - the set of genes that are activated determine whether that cell will be a neuron or a glial cell. The other is a set of proteins that mediate communication between adjacent cells, allowing co-ordination of their fate choices. Understanding how cells of developing ganglia co-ordinate these two influences is a key problem in understanding normal development. We have recently isolated a unique mutant in the former protein that appears to result in a defect in the function of the second system. Our proposal would allow us to test our ideas of how these influences are co-ordinated to generate ganglia.