title: Functional analysis of Hairy genes in Xenopus neural crest initial specification and cell migration.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Neural crest formation is one of the fundamental processes in the early stages of embryonic development in vertebrates. This transient and multipotent embryonic cell population is able to generate a variety of tissues and cell types in the adult body. hairy genes are transcription factors that contain a basic helix-loop-helix domain which binds to DNA. In Xenopus three hairy genes are known: hairy1, hairy2a, and hairy2b. The requirement of hairy genes was explored in early neural crest development although the late requirements of these genes during neural crest maintenance, migration and derivatives formation are still unknown.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this work, we extended the analysis of Xenopus hairy genes expression patterns and described new domains of expression. Functional analysis showed that hairy genes are required for the induction and migration of the neural crest and for the control of apoptosis. Moreover, we showed that hairy genes function as transcriptional repressors and that they are down-regulated by bone morphogenetic protein-Smad signaling and positively regulated by the Notch/Delta-Su(h) pathway.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results indicate that hairy genes have a functional equivalence between them and that they are required for multiple processes during neural crest development.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO), CONICET-UNT.
authors.forename: Guillermo A
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2426-2844
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Vega-López
authors.affiliation: Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO), CONICET-UNT.
authors.forename: Marcela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bonano
authors.affiliation: Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO), CONICET-UNT.|Instituto de Biología "Dr. Francisco D. Barbieri", Facultad de Bioquímica, Química y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Chacabuco, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina.
authors.forename: Celeste
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tríbulo
authors.affiliation: Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO), CONICET-UNT.
authors.forename: Juan P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Fernández
authors.affiliation: Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO), CONICET-UNT.
authors.forename: Tristán H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Agüero
authors.affiliation: Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO), CONICET-UNT.|Instituto de Biología "Dr. Francisco D. Barbieri", Facultad de Bioquímica, Química y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Chacabuco, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina.
authors.forename: Manuel J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Aybar
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D009432:Neural Crest / Q000196:embryology* / Q000378:metabolism*; D014981:Xenopus / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D029867:Xenopus Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D029867:Xenopus Proteins
keywords: DAPT; cell specification; morpholino; neural crest; transcriptional repressor