Elsevier

Developmental Biology

Volume 461, Issue 2, 15 May 2020, Pages 160-171
Developmental Biology

Original research article
Neural-fated self-renewing cells regulated by Sox2 during secondary neurulation in chicken tail bud

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2020.02.007Get rights and content
Under an Elsevier user license
open archive

Abstract

In amniotes, unlike primary neurulation in the anterior body, secondary neurulation (SN) proceeds along with axial elongation by the mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition of SN precursors in the tail bud. It has been under debate whether the SN is generated by neuromesodermal common progenitor cells (NMPs) or neural restricted lineage. Our direct cell labeling and serial transplantations identify uni-fated (neural) precursors in the early tail bud. The uni-fated SN precursor territory is further divided into two subpopulations, neural-differentiating and self-renewing cells, which are regulated by high- and low levels of Sox2, respectively. Unexpectedly, uni-fated SN precursors change their fate at later stages to produce both SN and mesoderm. Thus, chicken embryos adopt a previously unappreciated prolonged phase with uni-fated SN stem cells in the early tail bud, which is absent or very limited in mouse embryos.

Keywords

Secondary neurulation
Chicken embryo
Tail bud
Stem cells
Sox2

Cited by (0)

1

Present address: Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Tokushima University, 3-18-15 Kuramoto-cho, Tokushima, 770-8503, Japan

2

Present address: Faculty of Engineering, Okayama University of Science, Ridaicho, Kita-ku, Okayama-shi, Okayama, 700-0005, Japan