Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Published In

Journal of Developmental Biology

Keywords

Axon guidance, Axon outgrowth, Commissure, Integrin, C. elegans, GABAergic motor neuron, ina-1

Abstract

Formation of the nervous system requires a complex series of events including proper extension and guidance of neuronal axons and dendrites. Here we investigate the requirement for integrins, a class of transmembrane cell adhesion receptors, in regulating these processes across classes of C. elegans motor neurons. We show α integrin/ina-1 is expressed by both GABAergic and cholinergic motor neurons. Despite this, our analysis of hypomorphic ina-1(gm144) mutants indicates preferential involvement of α integrin/ina-1 in GABAergic commissural development, without obvious involvement in cholinergic commissural development. The defects in GABAergic commissures of ina-1(gm144) mutants included both premature termination and guidance errors and were reversed by expression of wild type ina-1 under control of the native ina-1 promoter. Our results also show that α integrin/ina-1 is important for proper outgrowth and guidance of commissures from both embryonic and post-embryonic born GABAergic motor neurons, indicating an ongoing requirement for integrin through two phases of GABAergic neuron development. Our findings provide insights into neuron-specific roles for integrin that would not be predicted based solely upon expression analysis.

Grant Information

This work is supported by a collaborative RUI grant from the National Science Foundation, Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, IOS1754986 (M.L.L.) and IOS1755019 (M.M.F./C.Y.B.) and by NIH F31NS103365 to D.O.

DOI

10.3390/jdb7030017

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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