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The Journal of Neuroscience, July 9, 2008, 28(28):7057-7067; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3598-06.2008

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Development/Plasticity/Repair
Bone Morphogenetic Proteins, Eye Patterning, and Retinocollicular Map Formation in the Mouse

Daniel T. Plas,^1 * Onkar S. Dhande,^4,7 * Joshua E. Lopez,¹ Deepa Murali,⁵ Christina Thaller,^2,4 Mark Henkemeyer,⁶ Yasuhide Furuta,⁵ Paul Overbeek,^1,3,4 and Michael C. Crair^1,4,7

Departments of ¹Neuroscience, ²Biochemistry, and ³Cell Biology, and ⁴Program in Developmental Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, and ⁵Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030, ⁶Department of Developmental Biology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75390, and ⁷Department of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510

Correspondence should be addressed to Michael C. Crair, Department of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06510. Email: michael.crair{at}yale.edu

Patterning events during early eye formation determine retinal cell fate and can dictate the behavior of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons as they navigate toward central brain targets. The temporally and spatially regulated expression of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) and their receptors in the retina are thought to play a key role in this process, initiating gene expression cascades that distinguish different regions of the retina, particularly along the dorsoventral axis. Here, we examine the role of BMP and a potential downstream effector, EphB, in retinotopic map formation in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and superior colliculus (SC). RGC axon behaviors during retinotopic map formation in wild-type mice are compared with those in several strains of mice with engineered defects of BMP and EphB signaling. Normal RGC axon sorting produces axon order in the optic tract that reflects the dorsoventral position of the parent RGCs in the eye. A dramatic consequence of disrupting BMP signaling is a missorting of RGC axons as they exit the optic chiasm. This sorting is not dependent on EphB. When BMP signaling in the developing eye is genetically modified, RGC order in the optic tract and targeting in the LGN and SC are correspondingly disrupted. These experiments show that BMP signaling regulates dorsoventral RGC cell fate, RGC axon behavior in the ascending optic tract, and retinotopic map formation in the LGN and SC through mechanisms that are in part distinct from EphB signaling in the LGN and SC.

Key words: bone morphogenetic proteins; retinotopic map; superior colliculus; lateral geniculate nucleus; visual development; EphB; EphrinB

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Received Aug. 18, 2006; revised May 19, 2008; accepted May 24, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Michael C. Crair, Department of Neurobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06510. Email: michael.crair{at}yale.edu

This article has been cited by other articles:

				R. D. Shah and M. C. Crair Mechanisms of response homeostasis during retinocollicular map formation J. Physiol., September 15, 2008; 586(18): 4363 - 4369. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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