In two papers in the April 21 Neuron, researchers from Children's Hospital Boston reveal important insights into how inhibitory cues affect the growth cone, and identify possible targets within axons that could be blocked to overcome this inhibition. Such intervention could possibly enable damaged axons to regenerate (normally impossible in a mature nervous system) and ultimately restore nerve function.
It's been known that cells synthesize an inhibitory protein called ephrin, which binds to a receptor called Eph on the axon's growth cone. But how this triggers the axon to change course or stop growing has been a mystery.
"Very little has been known about the inner workings of the cell that govern axon guidance," says Michael Greenberg, PhD, Director of the Neurobiology Program at Children's and senior author on both studies. "These studies begin to give insight into how the various steps of axon guidance are controlled."
The first paper found that when ephrin binds to Eph receptors on the axon, it activates a protein called Vav2 in the cell's growth cone. Activation of Vav2 induces the cell to engulf the ephrin-Eph complex, breaking the bond between the two and repelling the axon, causing it to turn away. When mice were genetically modified to lack Vav2 and the related Vav3, thereby eliminating this repellent signal, the mice had abnormal axon projections and defects in neural circuitry formation.
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Contact: Aaron Patnode
aaron.patnode@childrens.harvard.edu
617-355-6420
Children's Hospital Boston
20-Apr-2005