The Mexican axolotl salamander serves as a unique model system for studying regeneration, owing to its ability to faithfully restore its spinal cord following injury. This process relies on a population of neural stem cells (NSCs) capable of differentiating into new glia and neurons. Now, Karen Echeverri and co-workers investigate the function of miR-200a, a known pro-regenerative microRNA, in this process. Using RNA sequencing on injured spinal cord tissue, they show that the transcription factor and mesodermal marker brachyury is strongly upregulated upon miR-200a inhibition. When miR-200a is inhibited, the proportion of NSCs in uninjured and injured tissues increases, while the number of newborn neurons decreases. Instead, muscle fibres form upon miR-200a inhibition, suggesting that brachyury upregulation promotes differentiation towards a mesodermal fate. The authors demonstrate that, on a molecular level, brachyury upregulation upon miR-200a inhibition may be the result of increased FGF and Wnt signalling. Specifically, miR-200a directly represses expression of β-catenin, the key signal transducer of Wnt signalling. Together, these findings establish that, by regulating the FGF and Wnt signalling pathways, miR-200a represses mesodermal cell fate decisions upon spinal cord injury in axolotl to specifically promote the replacement of neurons and glia.
miR-200a: repressing mesodermal fate during spinal cord regeneration
- Split-screen
- Views Icon Views
-
Article Versions Icon
Versions
- Version of Record 14 February 2022
- Share Icon Share
-
Tools Icon
Tools
- Search Site
miR-200a: repressing mesodermal fate during spinal cord regeneration. Development 1 February 2022; 149 (3): e149_e0304. doi:
Download citation file:
Advertisement
Cited by
Call for papers: Uncovering Developmental Diversity
Development invites you to submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue: Uncovering Developmental Diversity. This issue will be coordinated by our academic Editor Cassandra Extavour (Harvard University, USA) alongside two Guest Editors: Liam Dolan (Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austria) and Karen Sears (University of California Los Angeles, USA).
Choose Development in 2024
In this Editorial, Development Editor-in-Chief James Briscoe and Executive Editor Katherine Brown explain how you support your community by publishing in Development and how the journal champions serious science, community connections and progressive publishing.
Journal Meeting: From Stem Cells to Human Development
Register now for the 2024 Development Journal Meeting From Stem Cells to Human Development. Early-bird registration deadline: 3 May. Abstract submission deadline: 21 June.
Pluripotency of a founding field: rebranding developmental biology
This collaborative Perspective, the result of a workshop held in 2023, proposes a set of community actions to increase the visibility of the developmental biology field. The authors make recommendations for new funding streams, frameworks for collaborations and mechanisms by which members of the community can promote themselves and their research.
Read & Publish Open Access publishing: what authors say
We have had great feedback from authors who have benefitted from our Read & Publish agreement with their institution and have been able to publish Open Access with us without paying an APC. Read what they had to say.