Transient neurites of retinal horizontal cells exhibit columnar tiling via homotypic interactions.
Sensory neurons with common functions are often nonrandomly arranged and form dendritic territories that show little overlap, or tiling. Repulsive homotypic interactions underlie such patterns in cell organization in invertebrate neurons. It is unclear how dendro-dendritic repulsive interactions can produce a nonrandom distribution of cells and their spatial territories in mammalian retinal horizontal cells, as mature horizontal cell dendrites overlap substantially. By imaging developing mouse horizontal cells, we found that these cells transiently elaborate vertical neurites that form nonoverlapping columnar territories on reaching their final laminar positions. Targeted cell ablation revealed that the vertical neurites engage in homotypic interactions that result in tiling of neighboring cells before the establishment of their dendritic fields. This developmental tiling of transient neurites correlates with the emergence of a nonrandom distribution of the cells and could represent a mechanism that organizes neighbor relationships and territories of neurons before circuit assembly.
Huckfeldt
Rachel M
RM
Department of Biological Structure, University of Washington, 1959 NE Pacific Street, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.
Schubert
Timm
T
Morgan
Josh L
JL
Godinho
Leanne
L
Di Cristo
Graziella
G
Huang
Z Josh
ZJ
Wong
Rachel O L
RO
D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000502:physiology; D002465:Cell Movement; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D049408:Luminescent Agents; D051379:Mice; D016501:Neurites / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D051248:Retinal Horizontal Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D013997:Time Factors
D049408:Luminescent Agents; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins