Clones in the Chick Diencephalon Contain Multiple Cell Types and Siblings Are Widely Dispersed
Development 122, 65-78 (1996) 65 Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 1996 DEV8292 Clones in the chick diencephalon contain multiple cell types and siblings are widely dispersed Jeffrey A. Golden1,2 and Constance L. Cepko1,3 1Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, 2Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and 3Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA SUMMARY The thalamus, hypothalamus and epithalamus of the ver- clones dispersed in all directions, resulting in sibling cells tebrate central nervous system are derived from the populating multiple nuclei within the diencephalon. In embryonic diencephalon. These regions of the nervous addition, several distinctive patterns of dispersion were system function as major relays between the telencephalon observed. These included clones with siblings distributed and more caudal regions of the brain. Early in develop- bilaterally across the third ventricle, clones that originated ment, the diencephalon morphologically comprises distinct in the lateral ventricle, clones that crossed neuromeric units known as neuromeres or prosomeres. As development boundaries, and clones that crossed major boundaries of proceeds, multiple nuclei, the functional and anatomical the developing nervous system, such as the diencephalon units of the diencephalon, derive from the neuromeres. It and mesencephalon. These findings demonstrate that prog- was of interest to determine whether progenitors in the enitor cells in the diencephalon are multipotent and that diencephalon give rise to daughters that cross nuclear or their daughters can become widely dispersed. neuromeric boundaries. To this end, a highly complex retroviral library was used to infect diencephalic progeni- tors. Retrovirally marked clones were found to contain Key words: cell lineage, central nervous system, diencephalon, neurons, glia and occasionally radial glia.
[Show full text]