PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Raphaël Aguillon
AU  - Romain Madelaine
AU  - Harendra Guturu
AU  - Sandra Link
AU  - Pascale Dufourcq
AU  - Virginie Lecaudey
AU  - Gill Bejerano
AU  - Patrick Blader
AU  - Julie Batut
TI  - Morphogenesis is transcriptionally coupled to neurogenesis during olfactory placode development
AID  - 10.1101/725705
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 725705
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/08/05/725705.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/08/05/725705.full
AB  - Morphogenesis of sense organs occurs concomitantly with the differentiation of sensory cells and neurons necessary for their function. While our understanding of the mechanisms controlling morphogenesis and neurogenesis has grown, how they are coordinated remains relatively unknown. The earliest wave of neurogenesis in the zebrafish olfactory placode requires the bHLH proneural transcription factor Neurogenin1 (Neurog1). To address whether Neurog1 couples neurogenesis and morphogenesis in this system, we analyzed the morphogenetic behavior of early olfactory neural progenitors. Our results indicate that the oriented movements of these progenitors are disrupted in neurog1 mutants. Morphogenesis is similarly affected by mutations in the chemokine receptor, cxcr4b, making it a potential Neurog1 target gene. We find that Neurog1 directly regulates cxcr4b through an E-boxes cluster located just upstream of the cxcr4b transcription start site. Our results suggest that proneural transcription factors, such as Neurog1, directly couple distinct aspects of nervous system development.One Sentence Summary Neurog1 controls olfactory placode morphogenesis via cxcr4b