Abstract
During cerebral cortical development, neurons migrate radially from the ventricular zone to the brain surface. Although the neurons have been known to locomote along processes of radial glial cells, the mechanism of locomotion is not clearly understood. Recently, slice culture experiments revealed that the adhesion molecule N-cadherin plays important roles in neuron locomotion. In this study, we aimed to develop in vitro experimental system to investigate the role of N-cadherin in neuron migration. Using isolated-neurons from mouse fetal hippocampi, we observed the neuron migration on the N-cadhrin-coated glass substrate, and evaluated the dependency of N-cadherin density on the motility. Consequently, we found that neuronal cell motility significantly increased as N-cadherin density increased.
