TY  - JOUR
A1  - Huber, Katrin
A1  - Franke, Aylin
A1  - Brühl, Barbara
A1  - Krispin, Shlomi
A1  - Ernsberger, Uwe
A1  - Schober, Andreas
A1  - Bohlen und Halbach, Oliver von
A1  - Rohrer, Hermann
A1  - Kalcheim, Chaya
A1  - Unsicker, Klaus
T1  - Persistent expression of BMP-4 in embryonic chick adrenal cortical cells and its role in chromaffin cell development
T2  - Neural development
N2  - Background: Adrenal chromaffin cells and sympathetic neurons both originate from the neural crest, yet signals that trigger chromaffin development remain elusive. Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) emanating from the dorsal aorta are important signals for the induction of a sympathoadrenal catecholaminergic cell fate. Results: We report here that BMP-4 is also expressed by adrenal cortical cells throughout chick embryonic development, suggesting a putative role in chromaffin cell development. Moreover, bone morphogenetic protein receptor IA is expressed by both cortical and chromaffin cells. Inhibiting BMP-4 with noggin prevents the increase in the number of tyrosine hydroxylase positive cells in adrenal explants without affecting cell proliferation. Hence, adrenal BMP-4 is likely to induce tyrosine hydroxylase in sympathoadrenal progenitors. To investigate whether persistent BMP-4 exposure is able to induce chromaffin traits in sympathetic ganglia, we locally grafted BMP-4 overexpressing cells next to sympathetic ganglia. Embryonic day 8 chick sympathetic ganglia, in addition to principal neurons, contain about 25% chromaffin-like cells. Ectopic BMP-4 did not increase this proportion, yet numbers and sizes of "chromaffin" granules were significantly increased. Conclusions: BMP-4 may serve to promote specific chromaffin traits, but is not sufficient to convert sympathetic neurons into a chromaffin phenotype.
Y1  - 2008
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/6008
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30-59816
SN  - 1749-8104
N1  - © 2008 Huber et al. , licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
VL  - 3
IS  - Art. 28
SP  - 1
EP  - 15
PB  - BioMed Central
CY  - London
ER  -