title: Surrounded by Slit--how forebrain commissural axons can be led astray.
abstract: In Drosophila, Slit acts as a barrier preventing roundabout expressing axons from entering the midline and sorting contralaterally from ipsilaterally projecting axons. Hutson and Chien, Plump et al., and Bagri et al. (all in this issue of Neuron) use Slit knockout mice and zebrafish astray/Robo2 mutants to show that in vertebrates, Robo/Slit function to channel axons into specific pathways and determine where decussation points occur. Ipsilaterally and contralaterally projected axons are equally affected.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology and The Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland Baltimore, School of Medicine, 685 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
authors.forename: Linda J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Richards
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001369:Axons / Q000502:physiology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D016548:Prosencephalon / Q000502:physiology*; D011971:Receptors, Immunologic / Q000502:physiology; D000097905:Roundabout Proteins
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D019476:Insect Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D011971:Receptors, Immunologic; D000097905:Roundabout Proteins; C066819:sli protein, Drosophila