title: S-laminin expression in adult and developing retinae: a potential cue for photoreceptor morphogenesis.
abstract: The development of the neural retina follows a stereotyped time course that begins with an undifferentiated neuroepithelium populated by multipotential progenitor cells and ends with a highly differentiated tissue containing diverse cell types. The identities of the factors that guide this differentiation have remained elusive; a likely location for such factors, however, is the extracellular environment. Here, we show that the extracellular matrix component s-laminin is present in the neural retina, that s-laminin expression parallels the differentiation of rod photoreceptors, that photoreceptors interact with s-laminin in vitro, and that antibodies to s-laminin profoundly reduce the appearance of cells that express rhodopsin in vitro. These data suggest that s-laminin plays a role in the differentiation of the neural retina and provide evidence that the composition of the extracellular matrix may be an important determinant of retinal differentiation.
authors.affiliation: Neuroscience Program, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 02111.
authors.forename: D D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: C V
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Olsson
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Brunken
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015153:Blotting, Western; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000378:metabolism; D007797:Laminin / Q000378:metabolism*; D010786:Photoreceptor Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D012160:Retina / Q000196:embryology / Q000378:metabolism*; D012860:Skates, Fish
chemical_list: D007797:Laminin; C058783:laminin beta2