Enteric glia as a source of neural progenitors in adult zebrafish
- The Francis Crick Institute, United Kingdom
- University of Bath, United Kingdom
- AstraZeneca, United Kingdom
Abstract
The presence and identity of neural progenitors in the enteric nervous system (ENS) of vertebrates is a matter of intense debate. Here we demonstrate that the non-neuronal ENS cell compartment of teleosts shares molecular and morphological characteristics with mammalian enteric glia but cannot be identified by the expression of canonical glia markers. However, unlike their mammalian counterparts, which are generally quiescent and do not undergo neuronal differentiation during homeostasis, we show that a relatively high proportion of zebrafish enteric glia proliferate under physiological conditions giving rise to progeny that differentiate into enteric neurons. We also provide evidence that, similar to brain neural stem cells, the activation and neuronal differentiation of enteric glia are regulated by Notch signalling. Our experiments reveal remarkable similarities between enteric glia and brain neural stem cells in teleosts and open new possibilities for use of mammalian enteric glia as a potential source of neurons to restore the activity of intestinal neural circuits compromised by injury or disease.
Data availability
High-throughput sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession codes GSE145885.
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Expression analysis of adult zebrafish enteric nervous systemNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE145885.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
The Francis Crick Institute (core funding)
- Vassilis Pachnis
BBSRC (BB/L022974/1)
- Vassilis Pachnis
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal experiments were carried out in compliance with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (UK) and in accordance with the regulatory standards of the UK Home Office (Project Licence PCBBB9ABB). Experimental protocols were approved by the local Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body (AWERB) of the Francis Crick Institute.
Copyright
© 2020, McCallum et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Enteric glia as a source of neural progenitors in adult zebrafish
eLife 9:e56086.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.56086
