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It's a wrap

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 8, pages 572–573 (2007)Cite this article

Extracellular cues, such as laminin, guide the selection and targeting of axons for myelination by SCs, and the laminin receptor β1 integrin has been shown to be crucial for radial sorting. Feltri and colleagues used mice in which β1 integrin was absent from SCs and which had impaired peripheral myelination. In neuronal cultures derived from these mice, the initial association between SCs and axons was normal, suggesting that the cause of the myelination defect lay at the next stage, when the SCs begin to extend radial processes (lamellipodia) into axon bundles. Indeed, SCs lacking β1 integrin produced reduced numbers of radial lamellipodia when grown in a laminin-coated dish.

Which signalling processes govern lamellipodia production? The RhoGTPases — which include cdc42, rac1 and rhoA — regulate cytoskeletal rearrangements, and both rac1 and cdc42 have been implicated in SC myelination. Both Feltri and Relvas's groups assayed RhoGTPase activity in mice with SCs that lacked β1 integrin and revealed a reduction in activity and membrane targeting of rac1, suggesting that rac1 activity in SCs depends on β1 integrin signalling. By contrast, cdc42 activity was unaltered or slightly increased.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS

  1. Benninger, Y. et al. Essential and distinct roles for cdc42 and rac1 in the regulation of Schwann cell biology during peripheral nervous system development. J. Cell Biol. 177, 1051–1061 (2007)

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  2. Nodari, A. et al. β1 integrin activates Rac1 in Schwann cells to generate radial lamellae during axonal sorting and myelination. J. Cell Biol. 177, 1063–1075 (2007)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Sherman, D. L. & Brophy, P. J. Mechanisms of axon ensheathment and myelin growth. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 6, 683–690 (2005)

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Authors
  1. Katherine Whalley
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Whalley, K. It's a wrap. Nat Rev Neurosci 8, 572–573 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2197

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