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Updated: Jun 27, 2026

Preparation and Immunostaining of Myelinating Organotypic Cerebellar Slice Cultures
Published on: March 20, 2019
Disruption of Nectin-like 1 cell adhesion molecule leads to delayed axonal myelination in the CNS
Jinsil Park1, Ben Liu, Tao Chen
1Department of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology, School of Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA.
Abstract:
Nectin-like 1 (Necl-1) is a neural-specific cell adhesion molecule that is expressed in both the CNS and PNS. Previous in vitro studies suggested that Necl-1 expression is essential for the axon-glial interaction and myelin sheath formation in the PNS. To investigate the in vivo role of Necl-1 in axonal myelination of the developing nervous system, we generated the Necl-1 mutant mice by replacing axons 2-5 with the LacZ reporter gene. Expression studies revealed that Necl-1 is exclusively expressed by neurons in the CNS. Disruption of Necl-1 resulted in developmental delay of axonal myelination in the optic nerve and spinal cord, suggesting that Necl-1 plays an important role in the initial axon-oligodendrocyte recognition and adhesion in CNS myelination.
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