Notch Signalling Defines Dorsal Root Ganglia Neuroglial Fate Choice
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Wiszniak and Schwarz BMC Neurosci (2019) 20:21 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12868-019-0501-0 BMC Neuroscience RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Notch signalling defnes dorsal root ganglia neuroglial fate choice during early neural crest cell migration Sophie Wiszniak and Quenten Schwarz* Abstract Background: The dorsal root ganglia (DRG) are a critical component of the peripheral nervous system, and func- tion to relay somatosensory information from the body’s periphery to sensory perception centres within the brain. The DRG are primarily comprised of two cell types, sensory neurons and glia, both of which are neural crest-derived. Notch signalling is known to play an essential role in defning the neuronal or glial fate of bipotent neural crest pro- genitors that migrate from the dorsal ridge of the neural tube to the sites of the DRG. However, the involvement of Notch ligands in this process and the timing at which neuronal versus glial fate is acquired has remained uncertain. Results: We have used tissue specifc knockout of the E3 ubiquitin ligase mindbomb1 (Mib1) to remove the function of all Notch ligands in neural crest cells. Wnt1-Cre; Mib1f/f mice exhibit severe DRG defects, including a reduction in glial cells, and neuronal cell death later in development. By comparing formation of sensory neurons and glia with the expression and activation of Notch signalling in these mice, we defne a critical period during embryonic develop- ment in which early migrating neural crest cells become biased toward neuronal and glial phenotypes. Conclusions: We demonstrate active Notch signalling between neural crest progenitors as soon as trunk neural crest cells delaminate from the neural tube and during their early migration toward the site of the DRG. This data brings into question the timing of neuroglial fate specifcation in the DRG and suggest that it may occur much earlier than originally considered. Keywords: Notch signalling, Mib1, Neural crest, Fate restriction, Dorsal root ganglia Background of bipotent trunk neural crest cell progenitors that are Peripheral sensory neurons and their supporting glia biased towards the sensory lineage [2]. Tis population of condense into specialised dorsal root ganglia (DRG) trunk neural crest cells migrates ventrally from the dor- that transmit somatosensory information from the sal neural tube, arrests within the somites, and is then body’s periphery to sensory perception centres within thought to gain neuronal or glial identity as they coalesce the central nervous system. A diverse array of neuronal into the DRG [3, 4]. sub-types underlies the ability of the DRG to transduce Notch signalling is known to play an important role in diferent sensations including pain, proprioception, neuroglial fate choice determination [5, 6]. Te Notch temperature and touch. Satellite glia sit in close asso- signalling pathway relies on direct cell–cell interactions ciation with neuronal cell bodies of the sensory gan- mediated by Notch receptors on the signal-receiving cell glia to modulate their microenvironment [1]. Both cell and ligands such as Delta and Jagged on the signal-send- types comprising the DRG arise from a sub-population ing cell. By a process known as lateral inhibition, Notch signalling enables a population of homogeneous progeni- tors to become specifed into diferent cell types, namely *Correspondence: [email protected] Centre for Cancer Biology, University of South Australia and SA Pathology, neurons and glia in the developing nervous system. In North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia the DRG, cells expressing Delta-like 1 (DLL1) adopt a © The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creat iveco mmons .org/ publi cdoma in/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Wiszniak and Schwarz BMC Neurosci (2019) 20:21 Page 2 of 13 neuronal fate, which then signal to adjacent cells via their diferentiate into neurons, however is maintained in neu- Notch receptors to inhibit neuronal diferentiation. Tis ral crest progenitors that diferentiate into glia, and thus in turn promotes glial diferentiation of cells in which is also used as a marker of mature glial cells [13, 14]. Tis neuronal diferentiation has been inhibited [7, 8]. early loss of Sox10 presents the possibility that a subset of Te study of Notch signalling in DRG development neural crest cells are specifed to become glia at the earli- has been complicated by the presence of multiple Notch est stages of their migration, before neurons diferentiate. receptors and ligands, all of which have the potential to In the absence of Mib1, DLL1 protein accumulates at the act in a functionally redundant manner. Tis has been cell membrane, and enables visualisation of neuronally overcome to some degree by the study of recombination biased signal-sending cells attempting to undergo active signal binding protein for immunoglobulin kappa J region Notch signalling. In Wnt1-Cre; Mib1f/f embryos, aber- (Rbpj) conditional knockout mice. RBPJ is a transcription rant DLL1 accumulation was evident as early as E9.25 factor which interacts with the intracellular domain of all immediately after neural crest cells had delaminated Notch receptors and is essential to mediate downstream from the neural tube, and this was accompanied by a loss transcriptional efects upon Notch pathway stimulation. of Notch1 intracellular domain (N1ICD) in the nucleus of Terefore, knockout of Rbpj is expected to abolish all migrating neural crest cells at this stage. Tis is the frst Notch signalling. Removal of Rbpj specifcally in neural study to demonstrate active Notch signalling between crest cells leads to profound DRG defects, including a neural crest progenitors at this early stage of trunk neural signifcant reduction in glial cells [9, 10], which is consist- crest migration, and suggests that the signalling events ent with a role for Notch signalling in promoting glial cell controlling neuroglial fate specifcation in the DRG occur development. However, these studies did not defne the much earlier than originally considered. timing of Notch activation during DRG development and gliogenesis, as well as the roles for Notch ligands in this Results process. Loss of Mib1 in neural crest cells causes severe dorsal root While several Notch ligands have been ubiquitously ganglia hypoplasia removed during mouse development (e.g. Dll1-null) At E12.5, the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) appear as uni- their specifc efects on DRG formation have been dif- formly-shaped, segmented tissue structures, positioned fcult to study given the broad roles Notch ligands play bi-laterally adjacent to the neural tube. All neurons and in many organ systems during embryonic development, glia that comprise the mature DRG are derived from neu- and the severity of knockout phenotypes [11]. Also, the ral crest cells [15]. Removal of Mib1 specifcally in neural removal of individual Notch ligands may be phenotypi- crest-derived tissue using a Wnt1-Cre driver and Mib1f cally misleading if multiple ligands are able to function in allele revealed severe DRG hypoplasia (n = 3/3; Fig. 1). a redundant fashion. To overcome these difculties, we Longitudinal sections through the developing neural addressed the function of Notch ligands during neural tube and DRG at E12.5 revealed that compared to con- crest and DRG development by removing Mind bomb 1 trol littermates (Wildtype (Cre-negative) and Wnt1-Cre; (Mib1) conditionally in neural crest-derived tissue. Mib1 Mib1f/+), Wnt1-Cre; Mib1f/f embryos exhibited a dra- is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that is required in signal-send- matic reduction of DRG neuronal tissue, as labelled by ing cells to target the Notch ligands for ubiquitination. immunostaining for the mature neuronal marker Tuj1 Tis ubiquitination is required for the internalisation (Fig. 1a). Lineage tracing of neural crest-derived tis- of Notch ligands upon signalling to Notch receptors on sue was performed by examining expression of a Z/EG adjacent cells, and this internalisation is essential for the reporter gene, which permanently labels cells with EGFP correct cleavage and translocation of the Notch intracel- upon expression of the Wnt1-Cre driver. Similar to Tuj1, lular domain to the nucleus in the signal-receiving cell to EGFP immunostaining was dramatically reduced in the enable active Notch signalling [12]. Terefore, removal of DRG of Wnt1-Cre; Mib1f/f embryos (Fig. 1b), indicating Mib1 in neural crest cells is expected to abolish activity of DRG defciency at E12.5 is caused by a loss of all neural all Notch ligands. crest-derived cellular components of the DRG. Consistent with the known role for Notch signal- ling in DRG development, Wnt1-Cre; Mib1f/f embryos Loss of Mib1 results in reduced glial progenitors, exhibit severe DRG hypoplasia, with a dramatic reduc- premature neuronal diferentiation and neuronal cell tion in glial cells in the DRG. Interestingly, the loss of death in DRG glial cells was preceded by reduced SRY-related HMG- To investigate the developmental timing of DRG def- box 10 (Sox10) expression in a subset of early migrating ciency, DRG formation was examined at earlier stages neural crest cells. Sox10 is a marker of pre- and migra- of development. By E10.5, all neural crest cells that will tory neural crest cells, which is lost as neural crest cells contribute to the neuronal and glial cell subtypes of the Wiszniak and Schwarz BMC Neurosci (2019) 20:21 Page 3 of 13 Fig. 1 Loss of Mib1 in neural crest cells causes severe DRG hypoplasia.