RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Diversity within olfactory sensory derivatives revealed by the contribution of Dbx1 lineages
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.11.12.514524
DO 10.1101/2022.11.12.514524
A1 Frédéric Causeret
A1 Maxime Fayon
A1 Matthieu X. Moreau
A1 Enrico Ne
A1 Roberto Oleari
A1 Carlos Parras
A1 Anna Cariboni
A1 Alessandra Pierani
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/11/12/2022.11.12.514524.abstract
AB In vertebrates, the embryonic olfactory epithelium contains progenitors that will give rise to distinct classes of neurons, including olfactory sensory neurons (OSN, involved in odor detection), vomeronasal sensory neurons (VSN, responsible for pheromone sensing) and GnRH neurons that control the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. Currently, these three neuronal lineages are usually believed to emerge from uniform pools of progenitors. Here we found that the homeodomain transcription factor Dbx1 is expressed by neurogenic progenitors in the developing and adult mouse olfactory epithelium. We demonstrate that Dbx1 itself is dispensable for neuronal fate specification and global organization of the olfactory sensory system. Using lineage tracing we characterize the contribution of Dbx1 lineages to OSN, VSN and GnRH neuron populations and reveal an unexpected degree of diversity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Dbx1-expressing progenitors remain neurogenic in the absence of the proneural gene Ascl1. Our work therefore points to the existence of distinct neurogenic programs in Dbx1-derived and other olfactory lineages.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.