THE WINGED HELIX TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR HFH2 IS EXPRESSED IN NEURAL CREST AND SPINAL-CORD DURING MOUSE DEVELOPMENT

The embryonic neural crest is a unique group of cells that gives rise to the peripheral nervous system as well as many other cell types. Mos t of the work describing the behavior and specification of these cells has been done in the avian system, a system amenable to experimental manipulations such as tissue grafting, cell transplantation and lineag e tracing. This work has been greatly facilitated by the use of molecu lar markers of neural crest cells such as HNK-1 and slug, markers that are not yet available for the study of mouse neural crest. Here we de monstrate that Hfh2 ((H) under bar NF3 (f) under bar orkhead (h) under bar ormlogue 2), a member of the 'winged helix' or 'forkhead' transcr iption factor gene family, is expressed in premigratory and migrating neural crest cells in the early mouse embryo and in motorneuron and in terneuron progenitors in the developing spinal cord. Using linkage ana lysis we have localized the Hfh2 gene to chromosome 4 at 44.91 chi fro m the centromere. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights re served.