The migration of neural crest cells to the wall of the digestive tract in avian embryo

Abstract

Isotopic and isochronic grafts of quail neural primordium in chick embryos have been made. Due to the particular structure of their nuclei, quail cells can be distinguished from chick cells and so be used as natural markers to study the migration of neural crest cells. We have been able to demonstrate by this technique that the parasympathetic enteric ganglion cells arise from two different levels of the embryonic neural axis which correspond to the vagal and lumbo-sacral parasympathetic centres. The main source of the enteric neuroblasts is located at the level of the somites 1–7. It gives rise to ganglion cells which migrate in the whole gut including the large intestine and rectum. The other region from which enteric neuroblasts originate is situated behind the level of the 28th somite and gives rise only to some post-umbilical gut ganglion cells. In this region of the intestine the ganglia are made up of a mixture of cells arising from the vagal and the lumbo-sacral levels of the neural axis. The part of the neural primordium between the 8th and the 28th somite does not participate in the formation of the enteric ganglia. The chronology of the enteric neuroblast migration has been studied. Most cells of vagal origin leave the neural crest before the 13-somite stage but the migration lasts sometimes until after the 16-somite stage. Those cells which have to reach the hind-gut level accomplish a long-term migration which can be evaluated at 6 days or more. The presumptive neuroblasts of lumbo-sacral origin are not found in the hind-gut before the 7th day of incubation. In our experiments we have never observed the migration of any quail cells into the endoderm of the chick host embryo. Therefore we consider that enterochromaffin cells of the digestive epithelium are not derived from the levels of the neural crest concerned in these experiments (i.e. rhombencephalic and medullary Anlagen).