PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Tobias Hoche
AU  - Roberta Marisca
AU  - Eneritz Agirre
AU  - Laura Jane Hoodless
AU  - Wenke Barkey
AU  - Franziska Auer
AU  - Gonçalo Castelo-Branco
AU  - Tim Czopka
TI  - Functionally Distinct Subgroups of Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cells Integrate Neural Activity and Execute Myelin Formation
AID  - 10.1101/689505
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 689505
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/05/689505.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/05/689505.full
AB  - Recent reports revealed heterogeneity of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs). It remains unclear if heterogeneity reflects different types of cells with distinct functions, or rather transiently acquired states of cells with the same function. By integrating lineage formation of individual OPC clones, single-cell transcriptomics, calcium imaging and manipulation of neural activity, we show that OPCs in the zebrafish spinal cord can be divided into two functionally distinct entities. One subgroup forms elaborate networks of processes and exhibits a high degree of calcium signalling, but infrequently differentiates, despite contact to permissive axons. Instead, these OPCs divide in an activity and calcium dependent manner to produce another subgroup with higher process motility and less calcium signaling, which readily differentiates. Our data show that OPC subgroups are functionally diverse in responding to neurons and reveal that activity regulates proliferation of a subset of OPCs that is distinct from the cells that generate differentiated oligodendrocytes.