A receptor-ligand interaction can evoke a broad range of biological activities in different cell types depending on receptor identity and cell type-specific post-receptor signaling intermediates. Here, we show that the TNF family member LIGHT, known to act as a death-triggering factor in motoneurons through LT-βR, can also promote axon outgrowth and branching in motoneurons through the same rec...

Drosophila Connectin (CON) is a cell surface protein of the leucine-rich repeat family. During the formation of neuromuscular connectivity, CON is expressed on the surface of a subset of embryonic muscles and on the growth cones and axons of the motoneurons that innervate these muscles, including primarily SNa motoneurons and their synaptic targets (lateral muscles). In vitro, CON can mediate h...

Degenerative spinal motor diseases, like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, are produced by progressive degeneration of motoneurons. Their clinical manifestations include a progressive muscular weakness and atrophy, which lead to paralysis and premature death. Current pharmacological therapies fail to stop the progression of motor deficits or to restore motor function. The purpose of our study was ...

Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with neural injury and dysfunction. Hypoxia/reoxygenation exposures, modeling sleep apnea, injure select populations of neurons, including hypoglossal motoneurons. The mechanisms underlying this motoneuron injury are not understood. We hypothesize that endoplasmic reticulum injury contributes to motoneuron demise. Hypoxia/reoxygenation exposures across 8 we...

We have studied synaptic connections between individual stretch-sensitive muscle afferents and motoneurons in the brachial spinal cord of bullfrogs. Sensory afferents from a given head of the triceps brachii muscle preferentially innervate motoneurons that project to the same muscle head. This preference is characterized in two ways: each class of sensory axon innervates a greater proportion of...

We generated spinal motoneurons from embryonic stem (ES) cells to determine the developmental potential of these cells in vitro and their capacity to replace motoneurons in the adult mammalian spinal cord. ES cell-derived motoneurons extended long axons, formed neuromuscular junctions, and induced muscle contraction when cocultured with myoblasts. We transplanted motoneuron-committed ES cells i...

We have demonstrated that the extensive degeneration of motoneurons in the rat facial nucleus after transection of the facial nerve in newborn rats can be prevented by local ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) administration. CNTF differs distinctly from known neurotrophic molecules such as NGF, BDNF and NT-3 in both its molecular characteristics (CNTF is a cytosolic rather than a secretory mole...

We have characterized different neuronal subpopulations derived from in vitro differentiation of embryonic stem (ES) cells using as markers the expression of several homeodomain transcription factors. Following treatment of embryo-like aggregates with retinoic acid (RA), Pax-6, a protein expressed by ventral central nervous system (CNS) progenitors is induced. In contrast, Pax-7 expressed in vi...

background: pattern recognition receptors (prrs) are the main sensors of pathogen and danger signals in innate immunity of which toll like receptors (tlrs) are the most studied ones. the contribution of prrs in cerebral inflammation induced by microbial infection, tissue damage and cancer has not extensively been addressed so far. glioma is the most common tumor of the central nervous system an...

In prior studies that used transneuronal transport of isogenic recombinants of pseudorabies virus, we established that medial medullary reticular formation (MRF) neurons sent collateralized projections to both diaphragm and abdominal muscle motoneurons. Furthermore, inactivation of MRF neurons in cats and ferrets increased the excitability of diaphragm and abdominal motoneurons, suggesting that...