Marc Tessier-Lavigne
Title
Professor
Department
Biological Sciences
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Molecular mechanisms of axon growth and guidance.
Email
marctl@stanford.edu
Phone
(650)724-4194
Fax
(650)724-4213
Address
371 Serra Mall
Mail Code: 5020
Faculty Research Description
An early step in the development of the brain is the growth of neuronal
axons from their cell bodies of origin to their appropriate targets, to
form a precise pattern of neuronal connections. The growth of axons is
highly directed, as axons are guided to their targets by specific molecular
guidance cues arrayed in the extracellular environment. These cues can
be attractive, steering axons towards particular sources of the cues,
or repulsive, steering axons away from inappropriate regions. We are interested
in identifying attractive and repulsive guidance cues for developing axons,
in elucidating their precise functions in guiding axons in vivo, and in
determining how axons respond to these cues with directed growth. In the
past few years, our laboratory and others have identified several families
of attractants and repellents, including the netrin, semphorin and slit
protein families, as well receptors involved in mediating the actions
of these factors. Our current efforts are aimed at identifying their functions
in guiding axons in vivo, and in identifying the signal transduction mechanisms
through which receptor activation leads to axonal steering. Three other
areas of interest are the identification of mechanisms that control the
stereotyped branching of axons to innervate multiple targets, the identification
of factors involved in the development of precise topographic projection
patterns, and the application of large-scale gene trapping in mouse embryonic
stem cells to identify other ligands and receptors involved in wiring
the brain.
Zou, Y., Stoeckli, E., Chen, H. and Tessier-Lavigne, M. (2000) Squeezing axons out of the gray matter: A role for Slit and Semaphorin proteins from midline and ventral spinal cord.Ê Cell, 102:363-365.
Galko, M. and Tessier-Lavigne, M. (2000). Function of an axonal attractant modulated by metalloprotease activity.Ê Science, 289: 1365-1367.
Barallobre, M. J., Del Rio, J. A., Alcantara, S., Borrell, V., Aguado, F., Ruiz, M., Carmona, M. A., Martin, M., Fabre, M., Yuste, R., Tessier-Lavigne, M. and Soriano, E. (2000). Aberrant development of hippocampal circuits and altered neural activity in netrin 1-deficient mice. Development 127:22.
Leighton, P.A., Mitchell, K.J., Goodrich, L.V., Lu, X., Pinson, K., Scherz, P., Skarnes, W.C., and Tessier-Lavigne, M. (2001) Defining brain wiring patterns and mechanisms through gene trapping in mice.Ê Nature, 410: 174-179.
Stein, E. and Tessier-Lavigne, M. (2001) Hierarchical organization of guidance receptors: Slit silences netrin attraction through a Robo/DCC receptor complex.Ê Science, 291: 1847-2034.
Stein, E., Zou, Y, Poo, M-M and Tessier-Lavigne, M. (2001) Binding of
DCC by Netrin-1 to mediate axon guidance independent of adenosine A2B
receptor activation. Science, 291: 1976-1982.
Areas of Study
SBRC
Axon guidance mechanisms
spinal cord development
signal transduction
brain wiring