Abnormal neural crest cell migration after the in vivo knockdown of tenascin‐C expression with morpholino antisense oligonucleotides

A key feature of vertebrate development is the formation of the neural crest. In the trunk, neural crest cells delaminate from the neural tube shortly after the fusion of the neural folds and migrate ventrally along specific pathways to form the neurons and glia of the peripheral nervous system. As neural crest cells leave the neural tube during the initial stages of their migration, they express the extracellular matrix glycoprotein tenascin‐C, which is also found in the stroma of many tumors. We have studied the possible role for tenascin‐C during neural crest morphogenesis in vivo by microinjecting tenascin‐C morpholino antisense oligonucleotides into the lumen of the avian neural tube in ovo and electroporating the morpholino antisense oligonucleotides into the precursors of the neural crest. After 24 hr, tenascin‐C immunostaining is reduced around the dorsal neural tube in the experimental microinjected embryos (12 of 13) but not in embryos microinjected with control morpholino antisense oligonucleotides (n = 3) or subjected to electroporation only (n = 2). In each of the 12 tenascin‐C knockdown embryos neural crest cells are seen ectopically in the lumen of the neural tube and in the neuroepithelium; cells that do leave the neural tube after the microinjection fail to disperse laterally from the surface of the neural tube into the somites. The observation that neural crest cells must express tenascin‐C to migrate normally is consistent with a role for this glycoprotein in contributing to the invasive behavior of neural crest cells. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.