Reprogramming of avian neural crest axial identity and cell fate

Abstract

Neural crest populations along the embryonic body axis differ in developmental potential and fate, such that only cranial neural crest can contribute to craniofacial skeleton in vivo. Here, we explore the regulatory program that imbues the cranial crest with its unique features. Using axial-level specific enhancers to isolate and perform genome-wide profiling of cranial versus trunk neural crest in chick embryos, we identify and characterize regulatory relationships between a set of cranial-specific transcription factors. Introducing components of this circuit into neural crest cells of the trunk alters their identity and endows these cells with the ability to give rise to chondroblasts in vivo. Our results demonstrate that gene regulatory circuits that support formation of particular neural crest derivatives may be employed for reprogramming specific neural crest derived cell types.

A Modular Platform for Differentiation of Human PSCs into All Major Ectodermal Lineages

“…As for other lineages, we identified ELAVL4 and SMYD1 to be preferentially expressed in placode and NNE, respectively (Figure 4F). Furthermore, we compared our NC dataset to a previously published study focused on identifying NC in chick (Simoes-Costa and Bronner, 2016). Of the genes significant enriched in the NC, we found significant overlap (p-value: 3.56 × 10 −7 ) between the two datasets (reflecting key conserved NC markers (Figure S4C,D).…”

Physiological Signatures of Dual Embryonic Origins in Mouse Skull Vault

“…TFAP2b is essential for craniofacial development [18]. Sox10 is considered to be one of the earliest neural crest-patterning genes [19, 20]. In humans, TFAP2 is found highly expressed neural crest derived frontal compartment [21], and in chicken, Sox10 is the earliest neural crest-specifying gene [19], suggesting different neural crest specifiers may function in species-dependent manner.…”

A genome-wide assessment of the ancestral neural crest gene regulatory network

“…These results suggested that the basic neural crest GRN was already present at the base of vertebrates, although some key regulators were missing from the lamprey neural crest specifier module 7 . Recently, our understanding of the composition and function of the neural crest GRN in gnathostomes has been greatly increased with the advent of next generation sequencing techniques including RNA-seq, ChIPseq and ATAC-seq [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] . Whereas the GRN of gnathostome neural crest has been greatly expanded, progress in reconstructing the neural crest GRN of jawless vertebrates has been limited due to incomplete genomic information.…”