23
May 2002
Neurobiology: Nerve development
The formation of specific connections between nerve cells in the developing nervous system depends on the 'pathfinding' ability of the growing axons to reach their targets. Over a century ago Ramón y Cajal compared the behaviour of axonal tips to leukocytes or amoebae. This analogy now seems even more apt with the discovery that neuronal growth cones may adapt to chemoattractants (such as netrin-1) during axon guidance in a manner that resembles the adaptation of chemotactic microorganisms. This points to a possible common mechanism for all forms of directed cell motility. [Article, p. 411] In a separate study a signalling pathway downstream of netrin-1, a protein cue that attracts or repels axons depending on the receptor involved, has been characterized. Binding of netrin-1 to one of its receptors, Dcc, activates the MAPK signal cascade, a ubiquitous pathway implicated in other aspects of development.
Netrin-1-mediated axon outgrowth requires deleted in colorectal cancer-dependent MAPK activation
CHRISTELLE FORCET, ELKE STEIN, LAURENT PAYS, VÉRONIQUE CORSET, FABIEN LLAMBI, MARC TESSIER-LAVIGNE & PATRICK MEHLEN
Nature 417, 443–447 (23 May 2002)
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