BMP signaling pathway and spinal cord development

Abstract

The development of spinal cord is a precisely and sequentially regulated process, which is controlled by signaling pathways and transcription factors in each stage. Overwhelming data have shown the essential roles of BMP signaling in different stages of this developmental process. It is also clear that the proper functions of BMP signaling require its cross-talk with several other signaling pathways including Notch, Wnt and retinoic acid (RA) pathways. Here, we highlight the recent advancement in understanding the roles of BMP signaling during neurogenesis, neural tube patterning, axon development and glial differentiation in the spinal cord, and emphasize its integrations with other pathways during these processes.

Keywords

BMP / spinal cord / neurogenesis / patterning / glia

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Acknowledgements

We apologize to all whose original work can't be cited in this review due to space limitations. We thank members of Dr. Jing's lab for comments and suggestions. This work was supported in part by the "Strategic Priority Research Program" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (N XDA01010201), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grand Nos. 30830034, 90919046), National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China (2007CB947101, 2008KR0695, 2009CB941100), Shanghai Key Project of Basic Science Research (08DJ1400501), and the Council of Shanghai Municipal Government for Science and Technology (088014199).

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