relationship between neural crest cells and cranial mesoderm during head muscle development神经嵴细胞和颅中胚层之间的关系在头部肌肉发展.pdfVIP

Relationship between Neural Crest Cells and Cranial Mesoderm during Head Muscle Development 1 ´ 1 ¨ 2 2 1 Julien Grenier , Marie-Aimee Teillet , Raphaelle Grifone , Robert G. Kelly , Delphine Duprez * ´ ´ ´ 1 CNRS, UMR 7622 Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire du Developpement, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France, 2 Developmental Biology Institute of Marseilles- ´ ´ ´ Luminy, UMR CNRS 6216 Universite de la Mediteranee, Marseille, France Abstract Background: In vertebrates, the skeletal elements of the jaw, together with the connective tissues and tendons, originate from neural crest cells, while the associated muscles derive mainly from cranial mesoderm. Previous studies have shown that neural crest cells migrate in close association with cranial mesoderm and then circumscribe but do not penetrate the core of muscle precursor cells of the branchial arches at early stages of development, thus defining a sharp boundary between neural crest cells and mesodermal muscle progenitor cells. Tendons constitute one of the neural crest derivatives likely to interact with muscle formation. However, head tendon formation has not been studied, nor have tendon and muscle interactions in the head. Methodology/Principal Findings: Reinvestigation of the relationship between cranial neural crest cells and muscle precursor cells during development of the first branchial arch, using quail/chick chimeras and molecular markers revealed several novel features concerning the interface between neural crest cells and mesoderm. We observed that neural