PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lucie Viou
AU  - Pierre Launay
AU  - Véronique Rousseau
AU  - Justine Masson
AU  - Clarisse Pace
AU  - Robert S. Adelstein
AU  - X. Ma
AU  - Zhengping Jia
AU  - Fujio Murakami
AU  - Jean-Vianney Barnier
AU  - Christine Métin
TI  - PAK3 controls the tangential to radial migration switch of cortical interneurons by coordinating changes in cell shape and polarity
AID  - 10.1101/2020.07.06.168179
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.07.06.168179
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/06/2020.07.06.168179.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/06/2020.07.06.168179.full
AB  - During the embryonic development, cortical interneurons migrate a long distance tangentially and then re-orient radially to settle in the cortical plate where they contribute to cortical circuits. Migrating interneurons express PAK3, a p21-activated kinase that switches between active and inactive states and controls interneuron migration by unknown mechanism(s). Here we examined the role of the kinase activity of PAK3 to regulate the migration of cortical interneurons. We showed that interneurons expressing a constitutively active PAK3 mutant (PAK3-ca) oriented preferentially radially in the cortex, extended short leading processes and exhibited unstable polarity. On the contrary, interneurons expressing an inactive PAK3 mutant (PAK3-kd for kinase dead) extended branched leading processes, showed directed nuclear movements and remained in the tangential pathways. Results showed that PAK3 kinase activity controls the switch between the tangential and radial modes of migration of cortical interneurons and identified myosin 2B as an effector of this switch.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.