Elsevier

Developmental Biology

Volume 475, July 2021, Pages 165-180
Developmental Biology

The role of cell lineage in the development of neuronal circuitry and function

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2020.01.012Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Cell lineages are developmentally-genetically and anatomically-functionally defined modules of the brain.

  • Progenitors of lineages (neuroblasts) in insects are formed at an early stage.

  • Insect neuroblasts produce a relative small number of large, diverse lineages.

  • Progenitors of lineages (radial glia) in vertebrates are formed late after a phase of symmetric amplifying divisions.

  • Vertebrate neural progenitors generate a large number of small lineages.

Abstract

Complex nervous systems have a modular architecture, whereby reiterative groups of neurons (“modules”) that share certain structural and functional properties are integrated into large neural circuits. Neurons develop from proliferating progenitor cells that, based on their location and time of appearance, are defined by certain genetic programs. Given that genes expressed by a given progenitor play a fundamental role in determining the properties of its lineage (i.e., the neurons descended from that progenitor), one efficient developmental strategy would be to have lineages give rise to the structural modules of the mature nervous system. It is clear that this strategy plays an important role in neural development of many invertebrate animals, notably insects, where the availability of genetic techniques has made it possible to analyze the precise relationship between neuronal origin and differentiation since several decades. Similar techniques, developed more recently in the vertebrate field, reveal that functional modules of the mammalian cerebral cortex are also likely products of developmentally defined lineages. We will review studies that relate cell lineage to circuitry and function from a comparative developmental perspective, aiming at enhancing our understanding of neural progenitors and their lineages, and translating findings acquired in different model systems into a common conceptual framework.

Keywords

Mouse
Zebrafish
Xenopus
Drosophila
Neural progenitor
Proliferation
Cell lineage
Cell fate
Circuitry

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