ABSTRACT
Oligodendrocytes are the central nervous system myelin-forming cells providing axonal electrical insulation and higher-order neuronal circuitry. The mechanical forces driving the differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells into myelinating oligodendrocytes are largely unknown, but likely require the spatiotemporal regulation of the architecture and dynamics of the actin and actomyosin cytoskeletons. In this study, we analyzed the expression pattern of myosin motors during oligodendrocyte development. We report that oligodendrocyte differentiation is regulated by the synchronized expression and non-uniform distribution of several members of the myosin network, particularly non-muscle myosins 2B and 2C, which potentially operate as nanomechanical modulators of cell tension and myelin membrane expansion at different cell stages.
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Footnotes
Author contributions
Conceptualization: H.S.D., B.R., C.V.M.-V., I.M.P.; Methodology: H.S.D., C.V.M.-V., I.M.P.; Formal analysis: H.S.D., C.V.M.-V., I.M.P.; Investigation: H.S.D., M.M.U., S.M.-R., A.A., A.I., Y.H., H.W., J.B.R., B.R., C.V.M.-V., I.M.P.; Writing - original draft: H.S.D., I.M.P.; Writing - review & editing: H.S.D., C.V.M.-V., I.M.P.; Supervision: C.V.M.-V., I.M.P.; Funding acquisition: C.V.M.-V., I.M.P.
Funding
H.S.D. received financial support by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through a post-doctoral fellowship with the reference SFRH/BPD/90268/2012. S.M.-R. and J.B.R. were supported by FEDER (Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional) funds through Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement in the framework of Project Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000008 (Porto Neurosciences and Neurologic Disease Research Initiative at I3S). C.V.M.-V., M.M.U. and H.W. were supported by the National Institutes of Health (SC1NS000001) and by a Research Centers in Minority Institutions Program grant from the National Center for Research Resources (G12 RR003037). I.M.P. received financial support from the Marie Curie COFUND Programme “NanoTRAINforGrowth”, from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 600375. This article is a result of the project Nanotechnology based functional solutions (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000019), co-financed by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Deposited in PMC for release after 12 months.
