title: Intestinal smooth muscle is required for patterning the enteric nervous system.
abstract: The development of the enteric nervous system (ENS) and intestinal smooth muscle occurs in a spatially and temporally correlated manner, but how they influence each other is unknown. In the developing mid-gut of the chick embryo, we find that α-smooth muscle actin expression, indicating early muscle differentiation, occurs after the arrival of migrating enteric neural crest-derived cells (ENCCs). In contrast, hindgut smooth muscle develops prior to ENCC arrival. Smooth muscle development is normal in experimentally aganglionic hindguts, suggesting that proper development and patterning of the muscle layers does not rely on the ENS. However, inhibiting early smooth muscle development severely disrupts ENS patterning without affecting ENCC proliferation or apoptosis. Our results demonstrate that early intestinal smooth muscle differentiation is required for patterning the developing ENS.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Hannah K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Ivy
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Maina
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Allan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.|Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Nandor
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nagy
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002645:Chickens; D017615:Enteric Nervous System / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000196:embryology*; D007422:Intestines / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000196:embryology*; D009130:Muscle, Smooth / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000196:embryology*; D009924:Organ Culture Techniques
keywords: development; enteric nervous system; gut; neural crest; smooth muscle