Innervation of rat brainstem motoneurones in organotypic culture from a co-cultured sensory explant.
A co-culture procedure was used to investigate the formation of target-specific afferents on brainstem motoneurones of the rat in organotypic culture. Explants of brainstem motor nuclei together with a tongue explant were co-cultivated with explants obtained from vestibular, collicular or sensory trigeminal nuclei. Fiber connections between sensory and motor explants were observed after a few days in culture. Fluorescent labelling with carbocyanin dyes showed that fibers from the sensory explants invaded the motor explant, whereas no axon or dendrites from the motor explant were found penetrating the sensory structures. A double fluorescent labelling procedure, involving retrograde labelling of motoneurones and orthograde labelling of sensory fibers, demonstrated that sensory fibers come in close contact with labelled motoneurones. Electrical stimulation of the sensory explant induced muscle contraction, thus demonstrating that afferent fibers from the co-explanted structure establish functional synaptic connections with motoneurones.
Guéritaud
J P
JP
Unité de Neurocybernétique cellulaire, CNRS, UPR 9041, Marseille, France.
Eustache
I
I
Launey
T
T
Seyfritz
N
N
D000818:Animals; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017729:Presynaptic Terminals / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar