In vivo transplantation of mammalian neural crest cells into chick hosts reveals a new autonomic sublineage restriction

The study of mammalian neural crest development has been limited by the lac k of an accessible system for in vivo transplantation of these cells. We ha ve developed a novel transplantation system to study lineage restriction in the rodent neural crest. Migratory rat neural crest cells (NCCs), transpla nted into chicken embryos, can differentiate into sensory, sympathetic, and parasympathetic neurons, as shown by the expression of neuronal subtype-sp ecific and pan-neuronal markers, as well as into Schwann cells and satellit e glia. In contrast, an immunopurified population of enteric neural precurs ors (ENPs) from the fetal gut can also generate neurons in all of these gan glia, but only expresses appropriate neuronal subtype markers in Remak's an d associated pelvic parasympathetic ganglia, ENPs also appear restricted in the kinds of glia they can generate in comparison to NCCs, Thus ENPs have parasympathetic and presumably enteric capacities, but not sympathetic or s ensory capacities, These results identify a new autonomic lineage restricti on in the neural crest, and suggest that this restriction preceeds the choi ce between neuronal and glial fates.