title: Development of melanocyte progenitors in murine Steel mutant neural crest explants cultured with stem cell factor, endothelin-3, or TPA.
abstract: Stem cell factor (SCF) has been suggested to be indispensable for the development of neural crest cells into melanocytes because Steel mutant mice (i.e., Sl/Sl(d)) have no pigmented hairs. On the other hand, it has been demonstrated that the addition of endothelin 3 (ET-3) or TPA to neural crest cell cultures can induce melanocyte differentiation without addition of extrinsic SCF. In this study, we excluded the influence of intrinsic SCF by using Sl/Sl mouse embryos to study more precisely the effects of natural cytokines, such as extrinsic soluble SCF or ET-3, or chemical reagents, such as TPA or cholera toxin. We found that SCF is supplied within the wild-type neural crest explants and that ET-3 cannot induce melanocyte differentiation or proliferation without SCF. These results indicate that SCF plays a critical role in survival or G1/S entry of melanocyte progenitors and that SCF initially stimulates their proliferation and then ET-3 accelerates their proliferation and differentiation. TPA has the ability to elicit neural crest cell differentiation into melanocytes without exogenously added SCF but it is not as effective as SCF because many more melanocytes developed in the wild-type neural crest explants cultured with TPA.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan. ono@hc.keio.ac.jp
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ono
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kawa
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asano
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Takano
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kubota
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mizoguchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002772:Cholera Toxin / Q000378:metabolism; D046508:Culture Techniques; D004295:Dihydroxyphenylalanine / Q000378:metabolism; D019334:Endothelin-3 / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005838:Genotype; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008544:Melanocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D009115:Muridae / Q000235:genetics; D009154:Mutation; D009432:Neural Crest / Q000166:cytology*; D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit / Q000378:metabolism; D019089:Stem Cell Factor / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000494:pharmacology*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D013755:Tetradecanoylphorbol Acetate / Q000494:pharmacology*; D014018:Tissue Distribution
chemical_list: D019334:Endothelin-3; D019089:Stem Cell Factor; D004295:Dihydroxyphenylalanine; D002772:Cholera Toxin; D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit; D013755:Tetradecanoylphorbol Acetate