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Regulated expression of the proteoglycan SPOCK in the neuromuscular system
C Cifuentes-Diaz1, P M Alliel, F Charbonnier
1Laboratoire de Neurobiologie du Développement Normal et Pathologique, IFM, INSERM, Paris, France.
Abstract:
SPOCK is prevalent in developing synaptic fields of the central nervous system (Charbonnier et al., 2000. Mech. Dev. 90, 317-321). The expression of SPOCK during neuromuscular junction (NMJ) formation was compared to agrin and acetylcholine receptor (AChR) distribution. SPOCK is detected within the myogenic masses during the early steps of embryonic development, and distributed in the cytoplasm of myotubes before coclustering with AChRs. In the adult, SPOCK is present in axons and is highly expressed by Schwann cells. SPOCK altered expression pattern after nerve lesioning, or cholinergic transmission blockade, strongly indicate that its cellular distribution at the NMJ depends on innervation.