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Technical Report
Nature Neuroscience  7, 678 - 682 (2004)
Published online: 25 May 2004; | doi:10.1038/nn1259


There is an Erratum (July 2004) associated with this Technical Report.

A new chemotaxis assay shows the extreme sensitivity of axons to molecular gradients

William J Rosoff1, 4, Jeffrey S Urbach2, 4, Mark A Esrick2, Ryan G McAllister2, Linda J Richards3 & Geoffrey J Goodhill1

1  Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, 20007, USA.

2  Department of Physics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA.

3  Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, and The Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, USA.

4  These authors contributed equally to this work.

Correspondence should be addressed to Geoffrey J Goodhill geoff@georgetown.edu
Axonal chemotaxis is believed to be important in wiring up the developing and regenerating nervous system, but little is known about how axons actually respond to molecular gradients. We report a new quantitative assay that allows the long-term response of axons to gradients of known and controllable shape to be examined in a three-dimensional gel. Using this assay, we show that axons may be nature's most-sensitive gradient detectors, but this sensitivity exists only within a narrow range of ligand concentrations. This assay should also be applicable to other biological processes that are controlled by molecular gradients, such as cell migration and morphogenesis.

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Nature Neuroscience
ISSN: 1097-6256
EISSN: 1546-1726
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