[Involvement of tissue interaction between cranial neural crest cells, their pathways lateral to the midbrain hindbrain border and the buccopharyngeal membrane in Meckel's cartilage formation in avian embryos].

Cranial neural crest cells migrate to the craniofacial primordia and differentiate into skeletal tissues of the jaw such as Meckel's cartilage. It has not been clearly demonstrated how neural crest cells are committed to differentiate into these tissues. In this study, the conditions that are required for the formation of Meckel's cartilage were investigated. In situ hybridization in chick embryos indicated that Fgf8 and Shh involved in the pattern formation of limb cartilages were expressed in the neural tube of the midbrain-hindbrain border, the buccopharyngeal membrane and the oro-proximal site of the 1st branchial arch (oro-proximal BA1). Cell-tracing with DiI confirmed that the neural crest cells derived from both the posterior midbrain and rhombomere 1 migrated to the buccopharyngeal membrane, which subsequently forms oro-proximal BA1, by passing through the mesenchyme lateral to the midbrain-hindbrain boundary. Based on the above results, we carried out two types of ectopic transplantation experiments by chick-quail chimera The graft of oro-proximal BA1, the complex of epithelium and mesenchyme, formed a Meckel's cartilage-like structure in a self-differentiation manner, whereas neither epithelium only nor mesenchyme formed any elongated cartilage. The ectopic transplant of the buccopharyngeal membrane into the mesenchyme lateral to the neural tube of the mid-hindbrain border in which neural crest cells were migrating formed a Meckel's cartilage-like structure. These results suggest that the cranial neural crest cells derived from the mid-hindbrain region are committed to the cell fate during migration, and receive further signaling to differentiate into Meckel's cartilage in their destination.