IN PLACE: Cerebral cortex neurons, like these from an adult mouse, reach their final destination with the help of guidance cells and binding molecules called nectins.COURTESY OF ULRICH MUELLER
The paper C. Gil-Sanz et al., “Cajal-Retzius cells instruct neuronal migration by coincidence signaling between secreted and contact-dependent guidance cues,” Neuron, 79:461-77, 2013. The finding During development, a large signaling molecule named reelin coordinates the outward migration of neurons from the inner neocortex, with help from a cell-adhesion molecule, cadherin 2. “The problem is that cadherin 2 is expressed all over the cortex in all cell types,” says Ulrich Mueller, a neuroscientist at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. “How could you use that to make a specific connection?” Now Mueller and his team have shown that two cell-adhesion and signaling proteins called nectins guide neurons to specific cortical destinations. The migration Mueller’s group used small hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) to knock down two ...
