scholarly journals Progenitors oppositely polarize WNT activators and inhibitors to orchestrate tissue development

eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Matos ◽  
Amma Asare ◽  
John Levorse ◽  
Tamara Ouspenskaia ◽  
June de la Cruz-Racelis ◽  
...  

To spatially co-exist and differentially specify fates within developing tissues, morphogenetic cues must be correctly positioned and interpreted. Here, we investigate mouse hair follicle development to understand how morphogens operate within closely spaced, fate-diverging progenitors. Coupling transcriptomics with genetics, we show that emerging hair progenitors produce both WNTs and WNT inhibitors. Surprisingly, however, instead of generating a negative feedback loop, the signals oppositely polarize, establishing sharp boundaries and consequently a short-range morphogen gradient that we show is essential for three-dimensional pattern formation. By establishing a morphogen gradient at the cellular level, signals become constrained. The progenitor preserves its WNT signaling identity and maintains WNT signaling with underlying mesenchymal neighbors, while its overlying epithelial cells become WNT-restricted. The outcome guarantees emergence of adjacent distinct cell types to pattern the tissue.

Reproduction ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 131 (4) ◽  
pp. 669-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
G Schuler ◽  
G R Özalp ◽  
B Hoffmann ◽  
N Harada ◽  
P Browne ◽  
...  

No definitive information is yet available on the steroidogenic capacity of the two morphologically distinct cell types forming the bovine trophoblast, the uninucleated trophoblast cells (UTCs) and the trophoblast giant cells (TGCs). Hence, in order to localise 17α-hydroxylase-C17,20-lyase (P450c17) on a cellular level and to monitor its expression as a function of gestational age, placentomes from pregnant (days 80–284; n = 19), prepartal (days 273–282; 24–36 h prior to the onset of labour; n = 3) and parturient cows (n = 5) were immunostained for P450c17 using an antiserum against the recombinant bovine enzyme. At all stages investigated, P450c17 was exclusively found in the UTCs of chorionic villi (CV), where staining was ubiquitous between days 80 and 160, but was largely restricted to primary CV and the branching sites of secondary CV between days 160 and 240. Thereafter, a distinct ubiquitous staining reoccurred in the UTCs of all CV in late pregnant, prepartal and parturient animals. Using an antiserum against human aromatase cytochrome P450 (P450arom), specific cytoplasmic staining was observed in TGCs. In placentomes from pregnant cows, staining intensity was higher in mature compared with immature TGCs and was more pronounced in the trophoblast covering big stem villi compared with the trophoblast at other sites of the villous tree. In placentomes of a parturient cow, specific staining was only found in mature TGCs that survived the normal, but substantial, prepartal decline in TGC numbers. These results clearly showed that bovine UTCs and TGCs exhibit different steroidogenic capacities, constituting a ‘two-cell’ organisation for oestrogen synthesis. P450c17 expression appears to be quickly down-regulated and P450arom is up-regulated when UTCs enter the TGC differentiation pathway.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (23) ◽  
pp. 13068
Author(s):  
Giovanni Tulipano

Metformin is considered the first-choice drug for type 2 diabetes treatment. Actually, pleiotropic effects of metformin have been recognized, and there is evidence that this drug may have a favorable impact on health beyond its glucose-lowering activity. In summary, despite its long history, metformin is still an attractive research opportunity in the field of endocrine and metabolic diseases, age-related diseases, and cancer. To this end, its mode of action in distinct cell types is still in dispute. The aim of this work was to review the current knowledge and recent findings on the molecular mechanisms underlying the pharmacological effects of metformin in the field of metabolic and endocrine pathologies, including some endocrine tumors. Metformin is believed to act through multiple pathways that can be interconnected or work independently. Moreover, metformin effects on target tissues may be either direct or indirect, which means secondary to the actions on other tissues and consequent alterations at systemic level. Finally, as to the direct actions of metformin at cellular level, the intracellular milieu cooperates to cause differential responses to the drug between distinct cell types, despite the primary molecular targets may be the same within cells. Cellular bioenergetics can be regarded as the primary target of metformin action. Metformin can perturb the cytosolic and mitochondrial NAD/NADH ratio and the ATP/AMP ratio within cells, thus affecting enzymatic activities and metabolic and signaling pathways which depend on redox- and energy balance. In this context, the possible link between pyruvate metabolism and metformin actions is extensively discussed.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asier Aristieta ◽  
Massimo Barresi ◽  
Shiva A. Lindi ◽  
Gregory Barriere ◽  
Gilles Courtand ◽  
...  

AbstractBasal ganglia (BG) inhibit movement through two independent pathways, the indirect- and the hyperdirect-pathways. The globus pallidus (GP) has always been viewed as a simple relay within these two pathways, but its importance has changed drastically with the discovery of two functionally-distinct cell types, namely the prototypic and the arkypallidal neurons. Classic BG models suggest that all GP neurons receive GABAergic inputs from striato-pallidal indirect spiny projection neurons and glutamatergic inputs from subthalamic neurons. However, whether this synaptic connectivity scheme applies to both GP cell-types is currently unknown. Here, we optogenetically dissect the input organization of prototypic and arkypallidal neurons and further define the circuit mechanism underlying action inhibition in BG. Our results highlight that an increased activity of arkypallidal neurons is required to inhibit locomotion. Finally, this work supports the view that arkypallidal neurons are part of a novel disynaptic feedback loop that broadcast inhibitory control on movement execution.


2013 ◽  
Vol 305 (3) ◽  
pp. F355-F361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Karger ◽  
Felix Kurtz ◽  
Dominik Steppan ◽  
Ilona Schwarzensteiner ◽  
Katharina Machura ◽  
...  

Renin-expressing cells in the kidney normally appear as mural cells of developing preglomerular vessels and finally impose as granulated juxtaglomerular cells in adult kidneys. The differentiation of renin-expressing cells from the metanephric mesenchyme in general and the potential role of special precursor stages in particular is not well understood. Therefore, it was the aim of this study to search for renin cell precursors in the kidney. As an experimental model, we used kidneys of aldosterone synthase-deficient mice, which display a prominent compensatory overproduction of renin cells that are arranged in multilayered perivascular cell clusters. We found that the perivascular cell clusters contained two apparently distinct cell types, one staining positive for renin and another one staining positive for type I procollagen (PC1). It appeared as if PC1 and renin expression were inversely related at the cellular level. The proportion of renin-positive to PC1-positive cells in the clusters was inversely linked to the rate of salt intake, as was overall renin expression. Our findings suggest that the cells in the perivascular cell clusters can reversibly switch between PC1 and renin expression and that PC1-expressing cells might be precursors of renin cells. A few of those PC1-positive cells were found also in adult wild-type kidneys in the juxtaglomerular lacis cell area, in which renin expression can be induced on demand.


Author(s):  
Waykin Nopanitaya ◽  
Joe W. Grisham ◽  
Johnny L. Carson

An interesting feature of the goldfish liver is the morphology of the hepatic plate, which is always formed by a two-cell layer of hepatocytes. Hepatic plates of the goldfish liver contain an infrequently seen second type of cell, in the centers of plates between two hepatocytes. A TEH study by Yamamoto (1) demonstrated ultrastructural differences between hepatocytes and centrally located cells in hepatic plates; the latter were classified as ductule cells of the biliary system. None of the previous studies clearly showed a three-dimensional organization of the two cell types described. In the present investigation we utilize SEM to elucidate the arrangement of hepatocytes and bile ductular cells in intralobular plates of goldfish liver.Livers from young goldfish (Carassius auratus), about 6-10 cm, fed commercial fish food were used for this study. Hepatic samples were fixed in 4% buffered paraformaldehyde, cut into pieces, fractured, osmicated, CPD, mounted Au-Pd coated, and viewed by SEM at 17-20 kV. Our observations were confined to the ultrastructure of biliary passages within intralobular plates, ductule cells, and hepatocytes.


Author(s):  
Brendan Clifford

An ultrastructural investigation of the Malpighian tubules of the fourth instar larva of Culex pipiens was undertaken as part of a continuing study of the fine structure of transport epithelia.Each of the five Malpighian tubules was found to be morphologically identical and regionally undifferentiated. Two distinct cell types, the primary and stellate, were found intermingled along the length of each tubule. The ultrastructure of the stellate cell was previously described in the Malpighian tubule of the blowfly, Calliphora erythrocephala by Berridge and Oschman.The basal plasma membrane of the primary cell is extremely irregular, giving rise to a complex interconnecting network of basal channels. The compartments of cytoplasm entrapped within this system of basal infoldings contain mitochondria, free ribosomes, and small amounts of rough endoplasmic reticulum. The mitochondria are distinctive in that the cristae run parallel to the long axis of the organelle.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 246-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Termini ◽  
Enrique Boccardo

In vitro culture of primary or established cell lines is one of the leading techniques in many areas of basic biological research. The use of pure or highly enriched cultures of specific cell types obtained from different tissues and genetics backgrounds has greatly contributed to our current understanding of normal and pathological cellular processes. Cells in culture are easily propagated generating an almost endless source of material for experimentation. Besides, they can be manipulated to achieve gene silencing, gene overexpression and genome editing turning possible the dissection of specific gene functions and signaling pathways. However, monolayer and suspension cultures of cells do not reproduce the cell type diversity, cell-cell contacts, cell-matrix interactions and differentiation pathways typical of the three-dimensional environment of tissues and organs from where they were originated. Therefore, different experimental animal models have been developed and applied to address these and other complex issues in vivo. However, these systems are costly and time consuming. Most importantly the use of animals in scientific research poses moral and ethical concerns facing a steadily increasing opposition from different sectors of the society. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the development of alternative in vitro experimental models that accurately reproduce the events observed in vivo to reduce the use of animals. Organotypic cultures combine the flexibility of traditional culture systems with the possibility of culturing different cell types in a 3D environment that reproduces both the structure and the physiology of the parental organ. Here we present a summarized description of the use of epithelial organotypic for the study of skin physiology, human papillomavirus biology and associated tumorigenesis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 2659
Author(s):  
Gianluca Costamagna ◽  
Giacomo Pietro Comi ◽  
Stefania Corti

In the last decade, different research groups in the academic setting have developed induced pluripotent stem cell-based protocols to generate three-dimensional, multicellular, neural organoids. Their use to model brain biology, early neural development, and human diseases has provided new insights into the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders, including microcephaly, autism, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. However, the adoption of organoid technology for large-scale drug screening in the industry has been hampered by challenges with reproducibility, scalability, and translatability to human disease. Potential technical solutions to expand their use in drug discovery pipelines include Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) to create isogenic models, single-cell RNA sequencing to characterize the model at a cellular level, and machine learning to analyze complex data sets. In addition, high-content imaging, automated liquid handling, and standardized assays represent other valuable tools toward this goal. Though several open issues still hamper the full implementation of the organoid technology outside academia, rapid progress in this field will help to prompt its translation toward large-scale drug screening for neurological disorders.


Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 355
Author(s):  
Guilhem Lalle ◽  
Julie Twardowski ◽  
Yenkel Grinberg-Bleyer

The emergence of immunotherapies has definitely proven the tight relationship between malignant and immune cells, its impact on cancer outcome and its therapeutic potential. In this context, it is undoubtedly critical to decipher the transcriptional regulation of these complex interactions. Following early observations demonstrating the roles of NF-κB in cancer initiation and progression, a series of studies converge to establish NF-κB as a master regulator of immune responses to cancer. Importantly, NF-κB is a family of transcriptional activators and repressors that can act at different stages of cancer immunity. In this review, we provide an overview of the selective cell-intrinsic contributions of NF-κB to the distinct cell types that compose the tumor immune environment. We also propose a new view of NF-κB targeting drugs as a new class of immunotherapies for cancer.


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