-Lineage Cells Increase Their Contribution to Visual Thalamic Nuclei during Murine Embryogenesis If They Are Homozygous or Heterozygous for Loss of Function.

Our aim was to study the mechanisms that contribute to the development of discrete thalamic nuclei during mouse embryogenesis (both sexes included). We characterized the expression of the transcription factor coding gene and the distribution of cells that expressed in their lineage. We used genetic fate mapping to show that -lineage cells mainly contribute to a subset of thalamic nuclei, in particular the lateral geniculate nuclei (LGNs), which are crucial components of the visual pathway. We observed that almost all -lineage diencephalic progenitors express the transcription factor Pax6 at variable location-dependent levels. We used conditional mutagenesis to delete either one or both copies of from -lineage cells. We found that -lineage cells carrying either homozygous or heterozygous loss of contributed in abnormally high numbers to one or both of the main lateral geniculate nuclei (LGNs). This could not be attributed to a change in cell production and was likely due to altered sorting of thalamic cells. Our results indicate that positional information encoded by the levels of Pax6 in diencephalic progenitors is an important determinant of the eventual locations of their daughter cells.