Nonradial migration of interneurons can be experimentally altered in spinal cord slice cultures

During development, many migrating neurons are thought to guide on radially oriented glia to reach their adult locations. However, members of the ‘U-shaped’ group of cholinergic interneurons in embryonic rat spinal cord appeared to migrate in a direction perpendicular to the orientation of radial glia. This ‘U-shaped’ group of cells was located around the ventral ventricular zone on embryonic day 16 and, during the next two days, the constituent cells dispersed into the dorsal horn or around the central canal. During this period, these cells could be identified with either ChAT immunocytochemistry or NADPH-diaphorase histochemistry and they appeared to be aligned along commissural axons, suggesting that such processes, rather than radial glia, might guide their migration. An organotypic spinal cord slice preparation was developed and utilized for three different experimental approaches to studying this migration. In the first experiments, slices of embryonic day 16 cervical spinal cord were cultured for one, two or three days, and a relatively histotypic dorsal migration of ‘U-derived’ cells could be inferred from these sequential cultures. A second set of experiments focused on the direct observation of dorsally directed migration in living spinal cord cultures. Embryonic day 16 slices were injected with a lipophilic fluorescent label near the dorsal boundary of the ‘U-shaped’ cell group and the dorsal movement of labeled cells was observed using confocal microscopy. These experiments confirmed the dorsal migratory pattern inferred from sequentially fixed specimens. A third experimental approach was to transect embryonic day 16 slice cultures microsurgically in order to disturb the migration of ‘U-derived’ cells. Depending upon the amount of ventral spinal cord removed, the source of cells was excised and/or their guidance pathway was perturbed. The number and position of ‘U-derived’ cells varied with the amount of ventral cord excised. If more than 400 microns was removed, no ‘U-derived’ diaphorase-labeled cells were present, whereas if only 200–300 microns was removed, the cultures contained such cells. However, in this instance, many of the ‘U-derived’ neurons did not move as far dorsally, nor did they display their characteristic dorsoventral orientation. When results from these three experiments are taken together, they provide strong evidence that nonradial neuronal migration occurs in developing spinal cord and that the ‘U-derived’ neurons utilize such a migration to move from their ventral generation sites to their dorsal adult locations.