title: The Caenorhabditis elegans Q neuroblasts: A powerful system to study cell migration at single-cell resolution in vivo.
abstract: During development, cell migration plays a central role in the formation of tissues and organs. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that drive and control these migrations is a key challenge in developmental biology that will provide important insights into disease processes, including cancer cell metastasis. In this article, we discuss the Caenorhabditis elegans Q neuroblasts and their descendants as a tool to study cell migration at single-cell resolution in vivo. The highly stereotypical migration of these cells provides a powerful system to study the dynamic cytoskeletal processes that drive migration as well as the evolutionarily conserved signaling pathways (including different Wnt signaling cascades) that guide the cells along their specific trajectories. Here, we provide an overview of what is currently known about Q neuroblast migration and highlight the live-cell imaging, genome editing, and quantitative gene expression techniques that have been developed to study this process.
authors.affiliation: Hubrecht Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and University Medical Center Utrecht, Uppsalalaan 8, 3584 CT, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rella
authors.affiliation: Hubrecht Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and University Medical Center Utrecht, Uppsalalaan 8, 3584 CT, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Euclides E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Fernandes Póvoa
authors.affiliation: Hubrecht Institute, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and University Medical Center Utrecht, Uppsalalaan 8, 3584 CT, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hendrik C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Korswagen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D036703:Blastula / Q000166:cytology*; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D002465:Cell Movement; D016764:Cell Polarity; D000072669:Gene Editing; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D008954:Models, Biological; D058953:Neural Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins
keywords: C. elegans; Wnt signaling; cell migration; cell polarity; neuroblast