...Binbin Li; Liza Brusman; Jacob Dahlka; Lee A. Niswander ABSTRACT Coordinated migration of the mesoderm is essential for accurate organization of the body plan during embryogenesis. However, little is known about how mesoderm migration influences posterior neural tube closure in mammals. Here, we...

... vesicles at the apical surface and interacts with β/δ-catenins during neural tube closure, and Irf6 is involved in defining neural fold borders by restricting AP2α expression. Twist1 suppresses Irf6 and other epithelial genes in CNCCs during the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) process and cell...

...Neophytos Christodoulou; Paris A. Skourides ABSTRACT Neural tube closure (NTC) is a fundamental process during vertebrate development and is indispensable for the formation of the central nervous system. Here, using Xenopus laevis embryos, live imaging, single-cell tracking, optogenetics and loss...

...Izabela Kowalczyk; Chanjae Lee; Elisabeth Schuster; Josefine Hoeren; Valentina Trivigno; Levin Riedel; Jessica Görne; John B. Wallingford; Annette Hammes; Kerstin Feistel ABSTRACT Pathogenic mutations in the endocytic receptor LRP2 in humans are associated with severe neural tube closure defects...

... that facilitate cell-to-cell communication via intracellular signaling pathways are required for neural tube closure through bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling, sonic hedgehog (SHH) signaling and wingless integrated 1 (WNT) signaling ( Kanzler et al., 2000 ; Ybot-Gonzalez et al., 2002 ; Castranio...

...Huili Li; Jing Zhang; Lee Niswander ABSTRACT Micronutrition is essential for neural tube closure, and zinc deficiency is associated with human neural tube defects. Here, we modeled zinc deficiency in mouse embryos, and used live imaging and molecular studies to determine how zinc deficiency affects...

...Joel M. Brown; María J. García-García ABSTRACT Neural tube closure relies on the apical constriction of neuroepithelial cells. Research in frog and fly embryos has found links between the levels of intracellular calcium, actomyosin dynamics and apical constriction. However, genetic evidence...

... patterns of calcium fluctuation in the Xenopus neural plate control epithelial folding, with extracellular ATP and N-cadherin also participating in calcium-induced apical constriction. Actomyosin Apical constriction Ca 2+ Epithelial remodeling Neural tube closure The construction...

...: The transcription factor Grhl2 activates novel EMT suppressors along with epithelial junctional proteins to robustly promote epithelial integrity during neural tube closure in mice. Neural tube closure Non-neural ectoderm Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition Neural crest cells Grhl2 Trim29 Mouse...

..., prolonged and robust live imaging system for visualizing the development of a variety of embryonic tissues in the midgestation mouse embryo. We demonstrate the advantages of this imaging system by following the dynamics of neural tube closure during mouse embryogenesis and reveal extensive movements...

... with apical-basal elongation of cells in the neural ectoderm are thought to be essential for the neural tube closure (NTC) process. In addition, it is known that non-neural ectoderm also plays a crucial role in this process, as the neural tube fails to close in the absence of this tissue in chick and axolotl...

...Wei Liu; Yuko Komiya; Courtney Mezzacappa; Deepak K. Khadka; Loren Runnels; Raymond Habas Neural tube closure is a critical morphogenetic event that is regulated by dynamic changes in cell shape and behavior. Although previous studies have uncovered a central role for the non-canonical Wnt...

... RACK1 as a novel interaction partner of PTK7, a regulator of planar cell polarity that is necessary for neural tube closure. RACK1 is likewise required for Xenopus neural tube closure. Further, explant assays suggest that PTK7 and RACK1 are required for neural convergent extension. Mechanistically...

... of Med12 hypomorphic mutants that have a drastic reduction in Med12 protein levels. These mutants fail to develop beyond embryonic day 10 and have severe defects in neural tube closure, axis elongation, somitogenesis and heart formation. We show that in Med12 hypomorphic embryos, the Wnt/planar cell...

..., including microtubules, are regulated in this process in vivo is largely unknown. Here, we show that neural tube closure in Xenopus depends on orthologs of two proteins: MID1, which is responsible for Opitz G/BBB syndrome in humans, and its paralog MID2. Depletion of the Xenopus MIDs (xMIDs) by morpholino...

... also confirmed, by WISH, that the nec2-MO injection did not affect the expression patterns of neural differentiation marker genes (see Fig. S2 in the supplementary material ). These results showed that nectin-2 is required for neural fold formation and thus for proper neural tube closure, without...

... virtually all Dvl1/2 double mutant embryos displayed craniorachishisis, a completely open neural tube from the midbrain to the tail. Thus, Dvl2 is essential for normal cardiac morphogenesis,somite segmentation and neural tube closure, and there is functional redundancy between Dvl1 and Dvl2 in some...